Safe at Home
by MagicSwede1965
Summary: Leslie returns to her birthplace on a mission involving her late grandmother, and discovers more than she expected. Follows 'Gossip Girl'.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** _I've had the basic idea for this story for about three years, but couldn't find a spot for it in the timeline till now. Some pertinent questions from Misheemom and PDXWiz helped it to finally fall into place, and now here it is. Thanks too for the loyal support from Harry2 and jtbwriter!

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§ § § -- January 5, 2006

"Father told me to take as long as I needed," said Leslie a little uneasily, watching through the airplane window as their flight circled perpetually busy Logan-Martin International Airport, waiting its turn in the landing queue. "I'm considering stretching it out as long as I can, just so we don't miss another anniversary together like we did last year."

Christian grinned. "I can't blame you, and I certainly wouldn't object. You look very anxious, my Rose. Does this place bother you that much?"

She settled back against the seat, having ascertained that what little of Boston she was able to see was merely coming around for another pass, and sighed. "Well, not Boston itself. What I'm really dreading is making the drive to Connecticut. I'm glad at least you offered to come along with me." They had arranged to rent a car on Saturday the seventh to make the drive to Leslie's birthplace of Plainville, Connecticut, located in the western half of the state and thus necessitating a couple hours' drive from their base in Boston. They had already arranged to leave the triplets with Ingrid so that Leslie could take care of her business there.

"What are husbands for?" Christian teased gently. "Come on, my darling, it can't be all that bad. Do you have the same frightening memories of Plainville as you do of Susanville? Is that the reason you're so jumpy?"

"I think I'm trying to beat a deadline," Leslie admitted. "I still can't believe they're actually going to do it. I thought I'd faint when Father told me."

Christian glanced at her, a touch of worry in his eyes. The phone call Roarke had received just before their departure for Lilla Jordsö had come from the manager of the cemetery in Plainville where Leslie's grandmother, Ingunna Hansson Reed, had been buried in 1973. It was a small cemetery and no longer capable of accepting new burials; and it had been losing money for years. The owner of the land it occupied had finally decided to sell the acreage to a developer, and surviving kin of the many deceased who were laid to rest there were getting telephone calls advising them of the situation and asking what they wished to be done. The developer wanted to get started clearing the land by the first of February, which had shocked Leslie and angered Christian. Aware that they didn't have much time to make a decision and act on it, they had talked it over with Roarke. As it happened, Leslie didn't need time to think: she knew exactly what she wanted to do. Roarke had readily agreed with her that Leslie's beloved _mormor_ should be reinterred on Fantasy Island, in the same cemetery where Helena Marsh, Tattoo and Teppo Komainen were buried.

"It's pretty callous-sounding, I'll say that," Christian mused, shaking his head slowly. "But on the other hand, what better excuse to move your grandmother to a place where her descendants can watch over her final resting place? Try to think of it as saving her memory, Leslie. I'm sure you've wondered who's tended her grave all these years."

"I've been back to see it only once in all the years since Michael packed us off to Susanville," Leslie told him. "That was on my way home from Lilla Jordsö, on my first trip there in 1993, the one when I found Frida's family."

"I see," said Christian, glancing at the triplets. He was sitting in the aisle seat across from Leslie, so that Karina and Tobias could wrestle each other for the view out the window; Susanna, sitting beside Leslie, had fallen asleep over an hour ago. "Did you do anything else when you made that visit?"

"I stayed in a hotel near the airport in New York City and rented a car just long enough to make the drive to Plainville and back," Leslie explained. "And I did nothing other than go visit _mormor_'s grave. At least someone had been tending it, keeping the headstone clean and all that. I left some flowers. Might've been the only time anyone ever did." Her voice trailed into a pensive, guilty silence.

"No use fretting over what's done," Christian said softly. "Just consider it bringing her back home, hm? And you'll be able to tend her grave yourself."

"Yeah." Leslie blew out her breath and relaxed in the seat, trying to look at it from Christian's point of view. "I guess you're right."

He grinned. "You have a nasty little habit of dreading things that are likely to be completely harmless. Are you afraid of ghosts or something?"

He said it jokingly, but Leslie gave him a serious look. "You know better than to ask a question like that of someone from Fantasy Island. If there _are_ any ghosts, though, I doubt I'd be afraid. I'd be anticipating _mormor_'s ghost, and I'd love to talk to her again."

"She'd be proud of you, Leslie," Christian said, reaching briefly across the aisle and laying a hand on her arm. He smiled at her.

"That's because I married a Scandinavian," she retorted, grinning, and they both laughed. He retracted his arm as a flight attendant made her way down the aisle in response to someone's call, and Leslie relaxed. "Well, I must admit, I don't have nearly as much worry about this visit as I did when we went to Susanville a few years ago. I don't expect to run into many obstacles. The funeral director told Father he'd do whatever I asked, so I think I'll probably ask him to have whatever may be left of _mormor_'s body cremated and placed in an urn so we can bring it back ourselves, without the hassle and expense of shipping a coffin."

"What of the headstone, though?" Christian asked. "I'm sure you'll want the original stone. If you're really worried about what it'll cost, don't. We can easily afford it."

"Yeah," Leslie admitted, blowing out the word on a sigh. "I guess so. And to tell the truth, I'd rather have the original stone anyway. It's made of New England granite, if I remember right. Mom insisted on that, and no matter how much Michael ranted and raved, she wouldn't back down."

"Good for her." Christian chuckled. "Well, then, I daresay you have little to fret over."

"I just wonder," Leslie mused slowly, the pensive expression back on her face, and he returned his full attention to her. "I wanted to cry at the funeral, but Michael wouldn't let me. I probably told you, he always regarded tears as a stupid female weakness that he didn't want his daughters indulging in. I had to stand there and hold back my emotions, but I can still remember how much I hated Michael for making me do it, and how I felt I was shortchanging _mormor_ somehow."

"Is that when you renounced him?" Christian asked.

Just then, before Leslie could reply, the captain announced that they were now about to land, and they felt the airliner begin to descend. "Oh, finally," she murmured. "I'll tell you about it later on, my love. Better make sure Karina and Tobias are strapped in."

They were escorted off the plane by airport security, due to their being well-known royalty, and straight to a waiting limousine against which leaned Benjamin Keller, the brash Bostonian Christian remembered from their initial encounter on Fantasy Island. He came to life when he saw them emerge from the glass doors and beamed, walking toward them with a hand outstretched. "Welcome to Boston, Yaw Highness!" he exclaimed in his heavy Boston accent, making Leslie's ears perk up in spite of herself. "Good t'see yuh. Hope y'trip was good. And Yaw Highness…" Here he shook Leslie's hand. "Glad t'meet yuh. Yaw from New England too, right? Welcome back. Yaw registid at the Parkah House Hotel in they-uh best suite, two rooms, for the kiddos and yaw maid they-uh. Hope I'm not botherin' yuh with this right now aftuh yaw flight, but I just wanted t'tell yuh, Prince Christian, I picked out a prime location in Cambridge and I'm wuhkin' on gettin' the utilities goin'. I got desks and office supplies, last thing I need's the computiz, and I brought along a stack of applications faw yuh to look at when ya feel like. Anything I can do faw yuh, just lemme know."

"We appreciate your hospitality," said Christian. "At the moment we just need a good night's rest and a chance to catch up with the local clock before we get down to business. If you can leave me your mobile-phone number, I'll give you a call in the morning when I'm ready to come and take a look at the location you've picked out."

Keller nodded. "Yaw call, boss, anything y'say. Y'might have some phone messages at the hotel. Coupla neighbuhs o'my-in got the good wuhd on th'project heah, and next thing y'know, they-uh spreadin' the news. Kinda couldn't help it aftuh-rye told 'em it's gonna be the newest branch of Enstad Computuh Services." He looked sheepish enough that Christian evidently decided not to tear into him for the unwanted publicity. A certain amount of advertising was necessary to get the business off the ground, after all, and he couldn't help being who he was. They would just have to endure the interview requests in this country so obsessed with celebrity.

Christian visibly held back a sigh and just nodded. "I suppose that's to be expected. If you get any more calls in that vein, tell them I'm going to grant one all-inclusive interview while I'm here, and that it will deal exclusively with business and no idle gossip or silly questions. I'm here to get this branch running, and that's it, so I won't entertain tabloid rags or chatty celebrity magazines." Keller nodded, and Christian continued, "I appreciate the work you've done so far, Ben. But my wife has a little business she must conduct in Connecticut, and I promised her I'd go with her. I'll take applications to review while we're there, but other than that, I intend to concentrate solely on her affairs there. I'll call you when we return on Monday."

"Gotcha, boss," said Keller, and Leslie was relieved to see the Bostonian display the respect Christian deserved, as both a prince and the owner of the business Keller was so eager to help him expand here. "Connecticut ovuh the weekend, then down to serious business come Monday." He looked at Leslie and offered, "Good luck with whatevuh yaw doin', Yaw Highness."

"Thanks," said Leslie and smiled. "I hope you'll excuse us, but the triplets are starting to get cranky and I think we'd better get on to our hotel."

"By all means," Keller said expansively and gestured to the limo. "This'll be yaw transportation the whole while yaw heah. Boston's no city to drive in if yaw not a native, so yaw bettuh-roff usin' this. Faw that mattuh, Boston's not necessarily a city t'drive in if y'_are_ a native." He chortled at his own wit, and Leslie grinned with appreciation; Christian allowed a strained smile before clearing his throat pointedly. Keller straightened abruptly. "Right, right. Good night, Yaw Highnesses, and have a good one."

"You too," Leslie replied, while Christian nodded once and promptly climbed into the car. Leslie handed in triplets one at a time and Christian strapped them into the car seats that the limo had been equipped with; then Leslie herself got in. She settled down as the trunk lid slammed down and the driver circled around to the front to take them to their destination. She smiled at her husband, who indulged in a huge yawn. "Poor Christian. The publicity machine's just grinding away at you again, isn't it?"

"It always does that," Christian admitted with an apologetic smile, "and it doesn't help that I'm tired and I just want some supper and then sleep. And I do have to confess, Keller's been right on the ball. He's accomplished more than I expected he would. I may not have to do any more than interview applicants and choose employees, and possibly some programming just to get the place up and running."

"You mean you think we could be home for our anniversary?" Leslie asked.

Christian half-shrugged and quirked a weary smile at her, then winked. "It's a possibility. I'd have to break my own speed-hiring record to get us home by the sixteenth, but stranger things have happened. First things first. Let's get settled, have something to eat and then get some sleep."

§ § § -- January 6, 2006

Christian didn't call Keller till nearly ten on Friday morning, just after he and Leslie had finished breakfast while Ingrid fed the triplets. Keller called for Christian within fifteen minutes, by which time Ingrid was eating her own meal, and that left Leslie at loose ends for a couple of hours while Keller took a still-jet-lagged Christian out to Cambridge in his own car and gave him a tour of the new location. Then Christian begged off for the day so that he and Leslie could plan their journey to Connecticut.

When he got back, Leslie was watching the last of the noon news on Boston's channel 5, the local ABC outlet. "It's sort of nice to get in step with what's happening in this city," she observed lightly when Christian let himself in.

His brows popped up and he grinned. "Anything interesting I should know about?"

"Well, there's a sort of buzz," Leslie admitted. "They mentioned as an aside that we're in town because of your new branch, but so far they have interviews only from Keller. I think they're anticipating a big TV interview. Who were you planning to grant one to?"

Christian stared at the screen, his grin fading and his brows sinking into a frown. "I'd been thinking _The Boston Globe_, but I forgot that television would be getting into the act as well. Maybe we'll have to let in one TV station and one _Globe_ reporter."

She shrugged. "We can handle it. I'd rather concentrate on the trip to Connecticut right now. Do you still think we should rent a car, now that we have that limo?"

"_Herregud,_ no. Let the driver earn his pay, I say." Christian sighed and tried to massage the back of his neck with his fingertips. "He can use that fancy bell-and-whistle GPS system to get us to Plainville, and we'll relax and you can tell me about the day you decided to reject Michael Hamilton as anything other than your biological parent."

Leslie got up and gently removed his hand, replacing it with her fingertips and rubbing at the base of his neck; he relaxed and let out an appreciative sigh, and she smiled. "It sounds like a good plan to me. You seem so tired, my love. Are you sure you don't want to take a vacation of some sort when we finally get home?"

"What parent of three toddlers gets any sort of vacation?" asked Christian good-naturedly, letting his head fall forward and smiling. "Ahhh, that feels wonderful. Thank you, my Rose, I'd forgotten that particular simple pleasure."

"Guess I'll have to do it a little more often, then," she teased. "Well, seems to me Ben Keller is your most enthusiastic promoter in these parts. Why don't you tell him to give the _Globe_ and one of the TV stations a call, and set up something."

"You lived in the general vicinity at one time," Christian noted. "What station do you think would be best?"

"Oh, that's easy. We always got stations from both Boston and New York. Michael was born in this city, and he wanted to keep up on things here, so when I was little we had the tallest TV antenna in our school district." Christian laughed, and she grinned and continued, "The local PBS station would be our best bet, WGBH. Keller'll know which program would be the right one."

"Hmm, okay then. I guess after supper tonight, I'll give Keller one more call and have him set things up. We're probably better off doing it in the office."

"What's it look like?" Leslie asked curiously.

"Nice building," Christian murmured, sounding a little sleepy under her ministrations. "Recently vacated by a perfumery, of all things. Smelled interesting in there." Leslie laughed and felt his shoulders twitch in response before he went on, "Anyway, there's plenty of room. He's already got ten desks set up in there, and one out front in reception. I thought he was pretty ambitious myself, but he says the buzz is very favorable and thinks there'll be quite enough work for ten employees and a receptionist."

"Huh. Does he figure to pitch in if things get really busy?"

"That was one of my first questions when we had lunch the first morning he marched into my office on Fantasy Island. After all the various businesses he'd bragged about launching and then selling off at a nice profit, I had the idea that he knew a little about everything. Jack-of-all-trades, you know. But his thing apparently is managing a business without necessarily putting a hand into the actual reason for its existence. He's manager, accountant and payroll officer all rolled into one, it seems. Before we went to Lilla Jordsö, I took the information Mr. Roarke gave me and did a fairly in-depth background check on Keller. I got some good reports. Seems there are at least half a dozen companies that he either started from scratch, or bought, rebuilt and sold at a profit. They're all doing well. So I'm taking my chances here, but what I've heard is promising."

Leslie smiled and moved her hands to his shoulders, massaging in grasping motions that made him catch his breath the first couple of times before he settled into it. "Did you tell him what you told the family in Lilla Jordsö about how he'd better perform or he'll be out the door before he learns the other employees' names?"

This time his amused response was audible. "I did, and let me tell you, I subdued him pretty well with it, too. He blinked and looked a little shocked, and then cleared his throat rather loudly and made several effusive promises not to let me down. I admit to being a little surprised by his reaction…"

"That's probably because His Royal Highness reared up and issued a command again, my love," Leslie remarked teasingly. "You get 'em every time with that, whether you know it or not. Well, okay, so you have your self-appointed manager in line and knowing his proper place in the hierarchy, and he's going to be your publicity manager along with all the other stuff while we're here. Now can we put all that aside and try to map out the trip to Plainville, so I can quit wondering what I'll find when we get there?"

Christian ducked out from under her hands and turned to face her, smiling at her and cradling her face between his palms. "You won't know till you get there, my Rose, so you might as well learn to live with the anticipation. But you survived returning to Susanville with flying colors, so I'm sure this will be a piece of cake."

"Famous last words," she scoffed.

"Worrywart," he teased lightly. "If it's a matter of excising bad memories, then as I said, we can do that on the trip there. Just as you did on the drive between Reno and Susanville, remember? Calm down and put it out of your mind for the time being, my darling, and let's try to enjoy ourselves, even if we can't just pop out and do the usual touristy things in this town. Maybe in Plainville we'll be just a bit more anonymous."


	2. Chapter 2

§ § § -- January 7, 2006

They had breakfast with Ingrid and the triplets, told her to give them a call in case anything serious came up, and were on the road by ten that morning. There was a little cooler built into the back portion of the car, stocked with juice and soft drinks; Christian had his usual coffee, and Leslie was going through the cooler looking for something appealing. Their driver was wending his way through the convoluted maze that was Boston's street map, and Christian eventually settled more snugly into his seat and watched the many buildings going by, venerable brick nestled in between modern glass and steel, decorated with blobs of dirty snow as if by some careless artist flinging paint onto his canvas.

Finally he tired of waiting for the city to give way to the suburbs and watched Leslie instead. Grinning, he queried, "Is it really that difficult to make up your mind, my Rose?"

She snorted to herself, rolled her eyes (making him laugh aloud) and grabbed a bottle blindly out of the cooler. "I really don't know what it is with me," she muttered. "There's not a thing for me to be nervous about."

"Maybe it isn't nerves," Christian suggested. "Maybe you're upset because of what's happening to the cemetery, or maybe it's anticipation that you'll find some long-lost papers of your grandmother's. After all, you got the contents of that safe you didn't even know your mother had, in Susanville. Why not find something similar here?"

Leslie shrugged and twisted open the cap with a series of high-pitched plastic pops. "I don't think that's going to happen. For one thing, whatever _mormor_ planned to leave me, I'd already have gotten it…"

"How do you know that?" Christian broke in.

"Because for my fifteenth birthday, Father presented me with the Swedish bride doll I have at home. It originally belonged to _mormor_. He'd sent to the bank _mormor_ and Mom and Michael used in Plainville; _mormor_ had put the doll in a safe-deposit box there. There was a note with the doll, explaining that Mom had told _mormor_ what Father predicted for me when Mom visited Fantasy Island, and that she had decided to leave it to me. I was just a baby when she wrote the note. If she'd planned to leave me anything else, she'd have put it in with that doll."

Christian nodded thoughtfully. "That's logical. Then what else?"

"Well, if _mormor_ did intend to leave me something else that we didn't find after the fire in Plainville, either Mom would have had to put it in the safe—as with the shoebox of pictures and _mormor_'s diary of her trip to Lilla Jordsö—or it would have been buried with _mormor_. And what good would it do me if it were buried with her? As far as I know, no one told _mormor_ that her remains would have to be relocated someday, so she wouldn't have had anything buried with her in anticipation of my recovering it years later."

"Okay," Christian conceded. "Then perhaps it's merely worry that I'm going to ask for a tour of the places you frequented when you lived there."

She paused and then eyed him. "Huh, maybe you're right." Christian laughed again, and she finally chuckled back. "So what made you think I was going to find something when we get to Plainville, anyway?"

He shrugged and said lightly, "I suppose, after what happened in Susanville, it would seem an anticlimax if you don't. Since you don't believe you will, then maybe you'll answer the question I asked just before we landed two days ago. When, exactly, did you renounce Michael Hamilton as your father?"

She considered it for a long moment, frowning a little as she thought back. Slowly she said, "I was going to say I don't really know. That is, I didn't just up and decide one day that I no longer had a father, you know?" Christian nodded encouragement, and she absently tucked some hair behind one ear, unbuttoning her winter coat in the warm car. "The longer I lived with Father, the more I began thinking of him as the dad Michael should have been but refused to be. I quit calling Michael 'Dad' pretty early on, though. Probably after the third or fourth retelling of how I ended up living on Fantasy Island in the first place."

Christian grinned. "Understandable. But you don't have a specific moment when you said to yourself, 'Michael Hamilton is no longer my father', or something similar?"

Leslie shook her head. "No, actually I don't. But I do remember when I told Father I didn't consider Michael my father. You see, the fire in Plainville happened toward the end of July, the year I turned eight. The twenty-fourth, if I remember right. _Mormor_ was buried on the thirtieth, six days later. I remember more about the funeral than the fire, actually. I can remember Mom herding the twins and me out the front door, even though we were yelling that we had to get _mormor_ out, and then there was this loud roar and I heard Michael say it was too late, or something. That's it, though. Then he refused to let me cry at the funeral, and that was the first time I consciously hated the man."

"I see. So you were talking to Mr. Roarke, then?"

"Uh-huh. It was the seventh anniversary of the Plainville fire, and it had turned into one of those long hot tropical summers you usually find on other South Pacific islands but not on Father's. It was the anniversary of the fire, a Thursday, and I'd been thinking all day long about _mormor_, in between running errands for Father…"

§ § § -- July 24, 1980

The unusual heat was getting to Leslie in spite of herself, and even the brisk sea breeze that blew into the car as she drove along the northern coast didn't help relieve the problem. She supposed this was mostly to blame for her steadily lowering mood today; on past anniversaries of her grandmother's death, she'd been sad but not brooding. This time it was different. For some reason the memories of Ingunna Reed's funeral refused to leave her mind whenever she was alone; over and over she remembered Michael warning her not to cry, telling her they were moving to California no matter what.

By the time she got back to the main house she wanted to shut herself in the kitchen freezer; she was that overheated. Roarke and Tattoo both looked up as she slouched down the stairs into the study and collapsed heavily into a club chair. "You okay?" Tattoo asked, studying her curiously.

"It's too hot," she mumbled, feeling listless.

"You haven't complained about that before," Roarke observed.

She peered at him. "I thought it was going away soon. I wish you'd quit denying you can influence the weather. I'm so tired of all this stupid humidity."

Tattoo grinned at that. "I gotta agree with her, boss. I've never known a summer as bad as this one since I came here. How do you stand it?"

"Perhaps," Roarke remarked, "the two of you have simply become spoiled by our usual perfect weather. But in your case, Leslie, I have a sense that there's more to it than that. Is there something you wish to talk about?"

She debated it with herself for a moment, then sighed. "I guess you'll find out sooner or later anyway. Heck, you probably already know, the way you are." She said this without rancor, and a twinkle lit Roarke's dark eyes in response, making her feel a little better—at least enough to open up finally. "This is the day my grandmother died, seven years ago. The day of the first fire in Connecticut."

Roarke nodded a little, his expression sympathetic. Tattoo came over and laid a hand on hers. "I'm sorry, Leslie. I'm sure you miss her very much."

"I do," she admitted softly. "But it was especially bad today. I couldn't keep from thinking about it. I mean, every time I was by myself, the memory of the funeral would pop back into my head, and I've been thinking and thinking…" Her fist clenched under Tattoo's hand, and he withdrew it, blinking once or twice. "I bet Michael killed her."

Roarke and Tattoo looked at each other, both apparently as startled as Leslie was by her own blurted assertion. "Since when have you begun referring to your father by his first name?" Roarke asked.

Still surprised at her unexpected remark, Leslie felt herself turning red. "I dunno, I guess I've been doing it for a while now. I…I don't even think of him as my father anymore. He didn't deserve to be called my father. I wish he hadn't been." The last five words came out in a low mumble, almost as if she didn't want Roarke and Tattoo to hear them.

"What makes you think he killed your grandmother?" Tattoo asked.

"The way Mom and my sisters died. I saw him throwing stuff on the house. Must've been something like gas or whatever, I don't know. I had a lot of time to think about it after the fire in Susanville, and I just knew he was trying to kill us all. Except I think he meant for me to die in the fire with Mom and the twins, instead of himself. There wasn't any reason for the fire in Plainville. I can't remember if we ever heard from the fire department there about the results of their investigation as to what caused it. But the way Michael insisted it was too late to save her…I don't care if he _was_ right, it makes me mad that he didn't even try and wouldn't let us try either. So I think he killed _mormor."_

"I see," said Roarke, watching and listening attentively. "And for that reason, you've decided you'll no longer acknowledge him as your father?"

"Well, he was a lousy one," she grumbled, annoyed. "All he did was make Mom pregnant with us, after all. He hated us and he never worried about whether we knew it. That's not how a father should be. I mean, look, I know I'm nobody special in the grand scheme of things, but I think he didn't deserve to be my father, and I…I've decided I'm going to disown him. From now on he's just Michael to me."

Roarke nodded quietly; Tattoo simply stood by, looking on with that mysterious, strangely knowing expression he sometimes got around their guests—the one that made Leslie wonder if he, too, didn't have a few powers like Roarke's. Her guardian smiled a little, catching the expression too, and then said, "That's your prerogative, my child."

She stared at him in surprise. "You mean you're not going to tell me I have to forgive him or something stupid like that?"

"Forgiveness isn't stupid, Leslie," Tattoo pointed out gently.

"Oh, I know that," Leslie said, a little frustrated. "But it's too good for Michael. He killed my family and he wanted to kill me! I'm not forgiving him for that."

Tattoo shrugged, still watching her; Roarke didn't react for a moment or two, just gazed at her with quiet compassion and acceptance. "Very well, Leslie. I realize you feel that way now. Perhaps one day you'll change your mind."

"No way," Leslie said with such emphasis that her guardian and his assistant exchanged glances again. "I'll never think of that man as my father for the rest of my entire life, no matter what happens. And I'm never gonna forgive him either. I'm serious."

"It's the heat, boss," Tattoo assured Roarke sagely. "It's making her touchy."

"I'm not touchy," Leslie flared, and both Roarke and Tattoo grinned. She rolled her eyes. "Okay, I'm touchy. Mr. Roarke, can we _please_ turn on the air conditioning?"

Roarke laughed at that and acquiesced. "By all means. I think we deserve a break."

§ § § -- January 7, 2006

Christian looked confused when she stopped speaking. "Wait a minute. What about the curse on your family? I thought that's what caused the fire."

Leslie caught herself before she would have responded and frowned. "Well, I know it was really the curse that was responsible for it, but at the time I was just mad at Michael because of the way he told me to quit crying for _mormor_. And I figured, if the fire in Susanville was his fault, then maybe he'd started the one in Plainville too."

"Hmm, I understand." Christian considered the situation in silence for a few minutes. Then he asked, "Did you ever ask your mother what she remembered from the fire here?"

"Mom was always a light sleeper. She told me the smell of smoke woke her up, and she sat up, hit Michael and jumped out of bed to come get us. _Mormor_ was bedridden and she would've needed our help, mine and the twins', to get her out. Unfortunately, the fire blew up so fast it prevented us from doing that." She caught her lower lip between her teeth, troubled. "I stopped and grabbed some things on the way out, and I think the twins did too. Maybe if we'd just left everything and gone straight to _mormor_'s room—"

"Don't second-guess yourself, my Rose, not all these years after the fact. Perhaps you could have, but you really have no way of knowing that, you must admit it. You said your mother hit Michael, then?"

"Uh-huh. Which implies that he was in bed asleep beside her and she had to whack him to wake him up. So no, if that was true—and Mom wouldn't have lied—then the fire wasn't his fault. It really was the curse, and knowing that, I guess the way the fire blew up so fast was because of it, because of that witch who initially cast the spell onto my distant ancestor way back during the Salem witch trials."

"I'd have thought she'd try to get all of you at the same time by making the house go up all at once," Christian ventured.

Leslie snorted. "She had three chances per generation. That was just her first one with mine—for that matter, with my parents' as well. It was at least her second chance with my grandparents' generation, and since Michael's parents and my maternal grandfather were already dead, she really _needed_ to kill only _mormor_, according to the terms of the curse. The rest of us could wait." Her voice was so sarcastic that Christian laughed.

"She felt she had all the time in the world, I imagine." His own comment seemed to startle him, and she watched him while he sat there focused inward, apparently processing a train of thought. After several minutes his gaze re-sharpened on her. "The witch…"

"What about her?" Leslie prompted when he hesitated.

Christian frowned slightly. "Let me be sure I remember this correctly. First, it was the witch's first chance with you, your sisters and your parents, here in New England." She nodded, and he went on: "Second, the witch succeeded in eliminating your parents' generation, along with most of yours, in the California fire. That left her one more chance and one more person to get rid of."

"Yeah," said Leslie, wondering what he was getting at.

"Now why didn't she try again between the deaths of your family and the time you finally went on to Fantasy Island?" he asked intensely.

Surprised, she blinked blankly at him, then forced her mind to focus on the question. "Because the curse was only on my family, and I was all that remained of said family. If she didn't try again before I left for Fantasy Island, then maybe there was some kind of…I don't know, restriction on her. Like a list of rules Mephistopheles might have drawn up for her at the time she first cursed my Salem ancestor." She and Christian shared a dry chuckle at that idea. "I was never in a building alone. I know this much: I would have had to be in a building somewhere. Father did a little more research on the curse after we finally broke it, the first week I was settling in, before I started school. The record showed that every single member of the family, through all the generations, had died at home, when their own dwellings caught on fire. And not once was an outsider caught in the proverbial crossfire—it was Hamiltons only, every time. After the second fire happened, I was always around people, either at school or at the Brookses' house. Mrs. Brooks worked part-time in the mornings and was always there when I came back from school. So I was never alone in their house; there was always at least one other person with me."

"I see," said Christian, nodding slowly. "That makes sense. Now, tell me how the third fire happened, the one on Fantasy Island."

"It was on the Sunday, after I'd spoken with Father about the curse and he had explained to me that I had to survive a third fire in order to break it. I ate all my meals, except the first one right after I arrived, at the main house with him and Tattoo. There was a chance the witch could have done me in then." Leslie frowned suddenly with the memory. "I hadn't slept much on the flight between Hawaii and Fantasy Island. When I was shown to a bungalow, the first thing I did was fall across a bed and sleep for a couple hours or so, and then someone brought me breakfast. I was alone all that time, and I have no idea why the witch squandered that opportunity."

Christian's smile was knowing. "Precisely because you were on Fantasy Island, in a place where a very powerful entity could watch over you on his own turf. I'm sure that witch realized she was up against something bigger than she was, and that she had to be very careful in how she executed her plans. For that matter, I expect she was the reason the lawyer's letter to Mr. Roarke was delayed, the one telling him you'd been orphaned. She was probably trying to gain herself some extra time to find a chance to attack again, but she didn't get it before you finally did go to Fantasy Island, where you were safe."

"Hm…I never thought of that. I just assumed it was the lawyer's fault," Leslie mused, turning this thought over for a moment, then looking up. "But then why would she have set my bungalow on fire in broad daylight the way she did?" She had an inkling of the answer, but she wanted to hear Christian's thoughts on the subject.

"She was running out of time, pure and simple," said Christian with a shrug. "If she didn't do something then and there, you'd eventually move into the main house with Mr. Roarke, and she'd lose her opportunity—at least till you were left alone there at some point. She was probably too impatient for that. She could see her chance slipping away, so she got desperate and struck out while she still could, despite the risks. And of course, she failed. There were others around, and they alerted Mr. Roarke and Tattoo to what was happening. That's how you survived and broke the curse."

Leslie grinned. "That's exactly how I saw it, that her window of opportunity was closing. I'm sure Father knew it too, and deliberately sent me back to the bungalow by myself so Tituba's hand would be forced and we could put the thing to rest once and for all."

"Of course. He's Mr. Roarke," said Christian, as though this were patently obvious, and she grinned again. "And there's your mystery, solved."

"Yeah," she murmured, settling slowly back into her seat. "Now I'm left to wonder what's waiting for me in Plainville, besides _mormor_'s remains."


	3. Chapter 3

§ § § -- January 7, 2006

In about an hour and a half the limo, winding along the twisty Interstate 84 around and through forests, up and down hills, came into the still-hilly outskirts of Plainville. The driver took the one and only exit into town off the highway where it curved sharply south, and headed west on State Route 72 for a couple of miles or so till he reached Unionville Avenue, where he turned north. Both Christian and Leslie were silent now, he taking in the town nestled in the hills, she bombarded with memories that had lain dormant for some three decades. She had twisted around in her seat and was watching street-name signs go by on their right. "There it is," she mumbled as a street called Johnson Avenue flashed past. Christian cranked his head around to stare at her.

"There what is?" he asked.

"Johnson Avenue. Our street was a piddling cul-de-sac off the north side of it, called Merivale Circle. We were number 3 and there were only four houses. I wonder what it looks like now…" Her voice trailed off as she tried to imagine it. Michael had packed up his wife and daughters and dragged them out west without their ever seeing 3 Merivale Circle again, without caring to learn the fire's cause or even waiting for the house to sell. She knew it had; they wouldn't have had the cash to buy the Banner Street house in Susanville. But what had happened to the one-story ranch she still remembered?

"We'll go back and look, if you like, my darling," Christian suggested gently.

She jerked back to the moment and managed a smile. "Yeah, sure. Oh, here we go." The car had slowed and was now turning onto a street marked Northwest Drive, going west again; less than half a mile later they spotted a small cemetery on the south side of the road, studded with tall pines and scattered deciduous trees that stood starkly in the winter sun. "Well, this is it. Fair View Cemetery, right next to Northwest Park."

"So this is the place the owner wants to turn into more new houses?" Christian murmured, watching through the window. The limo parked, and Leslie sighed softly just as the engine cut out, the sound of her exhalation seeming suddenly loud.

"Yup, this is it. Come on, let's find the caretaker." She didn't wait for the driver to come and open her door, but flung it open herself and got out even before Christian had a chance to respond. She spied the little office building and made for it, buttoning her coat on the way and forcing Christian to break into a jog to catch up.

The door was open, and she let herself in before Christian could say anything to stop her. Standing behind the counter was a woman whose lined face and white hair belied her otherwise hale stature. She looked up as if startled when Christian and Leslie came in; her face seemed a little pinched with stress, and there was anxiety in her eyes. "Can I help you?" she asked briskly.

"Yes, I'm Leslie Enstad," said Leslie without preamble, her own voice tight. "I'm here to pick up the urn that contains the remains of my grandmother. Ingunna Hansson Reed was her name."

The woman's face took on a look of shock, and she curtsied before either Leslie or Christian realized what she meant to do. "Prince Christian and Princess Leslie?" she blurted. "What in the world are you doing _here_—oh." Leslie's words seemed to register just then, and she laughed nervously. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. We've been going a little crazy. I'm still trying to recover from the complete insanity of all this. Everything comes down to money, doesn't it." Her voice was bitter. "Two months to contact the survivors of all the folks buried here and get them moved somewhere else. It's a travesty, I tell you. Should never have been done." She caught herself. "Ingunna Hansson Reed? Yes, that's right, the urn's waiting back here for you. I think there's a note with it, hold on just a moment." She ducked into an interior room, leaving them alone for the moment.

"Well, so much for anonymity," Christian observed dryly.

"At least they were prompt," Leslie muttered, hands in her pockets, surveying the walls. There were a couple of small bland paintings mounted on them, depicting generic autumn landscapes; otherwise they were bare. A newspaper lay folded and unread on the far end of the counter, and two chairs sat side by side beneath one of the landscapes. The office phone burbled insistently, then went silent.

"I think they're very harried," Christian said. "The demeanor of the receptionist, the circumstances…things are blowing up in their faces, and they don't like it."

"I just want to get _mormor_ out of here and take her home," said Leslie, in such a taut voice that Christian stared at her. But he didn't get the chance to ask any questions, for the receptionist reappeared with a peach-colored marble urn in her hands.

"Here we are, Your Highness," the woman said, gently placing the urn atop the counter. "We had your grandmother cremated, as you requested. I understand that according to this note, you want the original headstone shipped to…" She referred to a small yellow square of paper and stopped cold, staring for a second, before finishing, "…Fantasy Island?"

"That's right," said Leslie curtly. "As soon as you can."

Christian seemed to lose patience. "Leslie, for fate's sake, stop trying to shoot the messenger," he scolded, not unkindly. "It's not this lady's fault the cemetery's closing."

Leslie caught her breath and squeezed her eyes closed, mortified at her own behavior. "I'm sorry," she said helplessly. "I guess I'm just so incredibly mad about what's happening here…having to disturb my grandmother like this…"

"Believe me, Your Highness, we're no less upset," the receptionist told her fervently. "Like I said, it's just not right, some hotshot developer marching in here and making us dig up these poor souls without a care in the world for either them or their families. And the town letting them do it, too…unconscionable." She leaned over the counter beside the urn, her eyes bright. "But then again, your grandmother is very fortunate to have such a devoted granddaughter…and a princess who lives on Fantasy Island at that. I expect this lady will never have to be disturbed again." She spoke as if Ingunna were merely sleeping in the next room, and Leslie had to kill a grin at the thought.

"No, that's our intention," she said. "Anyway, thank you for your efforts."

"In all honesty, we were so relieved that your case was so easy. The easiest one out of all the poor people we've had to deal with since this mess went through. We've had such a terrible time trying to handle all the requests and the questions and everything else."

"I don't doubt it," Leslie agreed, blowing out her breath.

"How can this happen in the first place?" Christian asked incredulously. "Cemeteries are supposed to be hallowed ground. I've heard of developers building lots atop burial grounds, but it was always understood that these were people who died so long ago that no one knows who they are any longer. It sounds quite fishy to me."

The receptionist said soberly, "The economy's not doing so well lately, Your Highness. The developer offered a fantastic sum of money to the owner for this land, and you talk about smooth—he had them convinced in almost no time that new homes would bring in new tax revenues and new shoppers to the downtown area, and new students to the schools around here…oh, you name it. Those of us who opposed it at town meeting were shouted down. Well, voted down, but it was such a landslide it might as well have been a shout. No one can do anything to change it now. It's such a small cemetery anyway. I suspect most of the folks interred here'll be moved to one of the other cemeteries around town." She straightened and made an odd half-shrugging motion that Leslie supposed was the maneuver known as "squaring one's shoulders." "Well, as I said, it's done, can't be changed."

"Martha, don't hold these nice people up now," admonished a voice, and from the back room came an even older woman, moving slowly but on her own feet, without assistance of any kind. A pair of tiny half-round glasses perched precariously on the end of her squat nose; she peered at Christian and Leslie with kind eyes, and smiled broadly. "Oh, now I see why she's so talkative. The prince and princess of Lilla Jordsö. Or should I say, in the lady's case, little Leslie Hamilton."

Leslie stared at her, astonished. It wasn't the fact that this new arrival knew her maiden name—that was common knowledge and had come out in the interview Myeko had conducted with her and Christian immediately after their marriage—but that she had prefaced it with the word _little_. It told Leslie something extra. "Did you know me when I lived here before?"

"Not you specifically, dear, but your wonderful grandmother," was the smiling reply. "She was so proud of you and your little sisters, but she doted on you especially. Ingunna was a close friend of mine and I've missed her sorely all these years since her terrible death. I'm glad you're taking her along home with you. She needs someone to look after her, and I'm afraid I just don't have the legs to do it anymore."

Something in Leslie's heart shredded at the words and she grasped the hidden meaning in them. "You came and left flowers for _mormor,"_ she said, her voice weakening and wobbling worse with every word she spoke. "You must have…you did when I…" And she suddenly started to cry.

Christian gathered her into his arms and regarded the bright-eyed woman watching them. She fit the image that entered his mind whenever he heard the phrase "little old lady". "Who are you, then?" he inquired curiously.

"My name's Edith Appleton, Your Highness. Ingunna and I went way back. We traveled a few times together when Shannon was in college, and she introduced me to a good friend of hers overseas. My Fred and I, we never had children, so Ingunna was generous enough to lend me her daughter and Shannon's little girls." Edith Appleton's eyes twinkled, softening as she gazed at Leslie. "I see pictures of you two all the time, and I thought Leslie never looked prettier. But she's lovelier in person, and I see a lot of Ingunna in her. I reckon she'll get to look just like Ingunna in her dotage, and don't you worry, Your Highness, she'll still be as pretty as she is now. Ingunna was lovely."

Christian grinned. "Mrs. Appleton, let me assure you, Leslie could reach her old age resembling a bulldog and I wouldn't love her any less than I do now." That set off both the older women into gales of laughter, and he took the brief opportunity to squeeze Leslie and stroke her hair. She looked up with gratitude in her eyes, and he smiled at her. "My Rose, Mrs. Appleton here tells me she traveled with your grandmother at one time. I'm sure she could tell you stories, if you were willing to listen."

Edith Appleton smiled fondly at Leslie when the latter turned swimming eyes on her. "Oh yes, you'd be amazed, dear. Now I'll be headed home soon, once that silly Madelyn gets in here, and I won't hear of anything else but that you come to my house for a little lunch, and let me show you the scrapbooks I still have of those trips."

Martha, the receptionist, smiled. "Don't let her keep you too long. I know royalty has too much to do and no time to do it. Paper says you're in Boston to open another branch of your computer company, right, Your Highness? If you want to get anything done, make sure you don't let Edith keep you longer than a week." She winked, and Christian let out a laugh; even Leslie had to grin.

The door opened, admitting a rush of cold air, and a girl who appeared to be no more than a high-school student whirled in, shoving the door closed after her in a frantic motion and shivering ostentatiously. "Oooo, wow, it sure is _freeeeeeezing_ out there, isn't it?" She saw Christian and Leslie, and her eyes doubled their size. "Omigod, it's you!"

"Meet Madelyn," offered Edith Appleton dryly. "Do you know which 'you' you're talking about, Maddie?"

The girl looked to be on the verge of hyperventilating. "Omigod, _yes!!_ Omigod, omi_god_, I can't believe I'm really meeting royal people. Omigod, whaddo I do, do I hafta bow or kneel at your feet or anything like that?"

Christian looked as if he would have preferred to be on a sinking ship; Leslie grinned and managed to regain control over her emotions. "No, nothing special. Nice to meet you, Madelyn. Mrs. Appleton, I guess we're ready to go anytime you are. We can follow you, we came in our own car."

Before Mrs. Appleton could respond, Madelyn gushed, "Oooo, in the limousine out there, right? Omigod, that must be so awesomely cool. Oh, before you go, could I please have your autographs?" She began to scramble frantically in the tote bag she carried, and looked panicky when she couldn't find anything suitable for them to sign. "Omigod, Martha, isn't there any paper around here?"

"Young lady, you'd exhaust a saint's patience. You'll rot Their Highnesses' teeth with all your fawning around. Don't pay any attention to her, Your Highnesses…"

Christian sighed gently while Leslie chuckled. "It's okay, no problem. We're sort of used to this stuff. Maybe I have something." She was aware of Christian staring at her while she poked around in her purse and finally came up with the sales slip for the wedding gift she'd bought for Rudolf and Louisa, at a Fantasy Island shop. "I guess this'll do."

"No sensitive information on that, I hope?" Christian inquired pointedly.

She checked the front of the slip and shook her head. "No, I paid cash for it. Don't worry so much, my love. The quicker you sign, the quicker we can get going." Christian grumbled something in _jordiska_ only she could hear, but signed the slip anyway. Leslie added her own signature and handed it to the ecstatic Madelyn; then she and Christian wished Madelyn and Martha a good day, and exited the building along with Edith Appleton, Leslie bearing the urn containing Ingunna's ashes.

"You get a lot of that, I imagine," Mrs. Appleton observed cheerfully as they stepped into a patch of sunshine. The sun had been playing tag with the clouds all day, and the light was warm on their heads. Christian tilted his head back to let it shine on his face, while Leslie grinned ruefully.

"More than we like, and I think it bothers Christian a lot more than it does me. After all, he's been famous all his life." Mrs. Appleton nodded understanding, and she smiled. "But he's pretty good about it, unless you catch him in a bad mood. Come on, my darling, it's too cold out here for that."

A passing cloud dimmed the pavement and Christian sighed. "Just enjoying the sun while I can. Anna-Laura's right—I _am_ too acclimated to the South Pacific. Annoying for a Scandinavian prince, isn't it? All right, then, you can lead the way, Mrs. Appleton, and I'll tell our driver to follow you."

A couple of minutes later their limo was trailing a small white Toyota back east along Northwest Drive; they braced themselves as the car turned right onto Unionville Avenue. Leslie had been hanging onto the urn to keep it from tumbling off the seat beside her, but she was distracted by the surprise of having the limo turn onto Johnson Avenue. Christian didn't miss it either. "Isn't this the street that leads to the one you lived on?"

"Yeah, it goes up to an intersection, and you turn just before that onto…Merivale…" Her voice trailed off in shock, for that was exactly what was happening. Christian read the little green sign that proclaimed the name of the miniature cul-de-sac they were entering, and then heard a strangled squeak from his wife. He turned to stare at her and found her eyes making to explode out of her head. The white Toyota was pulling into the driveway of a house marked number 3.

"You said this was your house," said Christian hesitantly.

"She lives here?" was Leslie's response, coming on the heels of a gasp that sounded as if she'd just come up from a near-drowning.

Leaving the urn in the limo, Christian and Leslie let themselves out, and Christian had a quick word with the driver while Leslie turned to stare at the house she had lived in during the first eight years of her life. The last memory she had of the place was of half a building—the living room and kitchen still intact, the bedrooms and bathroom little more than a blackened shell. Now, instead of the one-story bedroom wing she remembered, there was a two-story addition that blended in surprisingly well with what had remained of the original house. There were lace curtains at all the windows, and the snow-topped shrubs looked as if they had been pruned by a professional gardener.

She flinched hard when Edith Appleton came up and patted her arm. "I suppose I should have said something, dear," she said apologetically. "I didn't know it would have that effect on you. My goodness, I hope you're not too upset."

Leslie blinked rapidly at her and drew in two or three deep breaths, trying to slow her pounding heart, automatically taking Christian's hand as she sensed him pull to a halt beside her. "I…I don't know, I guess I'm just trying to take it all in. The changes, the fact that you live here to begin with—I mean, I never knew who bought the house after Michael took us out to California. I remember I used to wonder what in the world had happened to it and if the new owners had rebuilt it and were taking good care of it."

"This isn't the house I recall from those photographs you have, my Rose," Christian remarked, as if he hadn't heard what they'd said.

Edith Appleton smiled. "No, it isn't quite, Your Highness," she said. "But before we all freeze out here, for goodness' sake, let's get inside and have some nice hot cocoa. Does that appeal, Your Highness?" She suddenly looked uncertain. "I mean, I'm sure you must be used to expensive Swiss and Belgian gourmet chocolates…"

Christian rolled his eyes and laughed. "Believe me, when you're royalty, simple home-cooked food quickly begins to sound exotic, because everyone assumes you always have only the best of the best. Too often, though, that translates into overly rich dishes that don't really satisfy the palate. Hot cocoa sounds wonderful."

Mrs. Appleton beamed. "In that case, come right in. Just follow me, and don't hesitate to make yourselves right at home. That shouldn't be so hard for you, now, should it? Do you prefer me to call you Your Highness?" These last two sentences she addressed to Leslie, who couldn't seem to take her eyes off the house.

She realized after a few seconds that she had been spoken to, and forced herself to focus on something besides the changes. "Oh…well, to tell you the truth, princess or not, I've never been able to get used to being called 'Your Highness'. Please just call me Leslie."

"And call me Christian," her husband put in with a warm smile at Mrs. Appleton. "I get very tired of being a prince sometimes."

Mrs. Appleton laughed aloud with surprise. "My goodness. Certainly never thought I'd hear a prince admit to something outrageous like that. Oh, for heaven's sake. I'm just rambling on and on, aren't I? You should have told me to shut my mouth and get us inside already." She removed from her pocket a collection that seemed to consist of as many keychains as keys, sorted through them till she found the right one, and led them right along to the back door—a time-honored New England tradition that came back to Leslie with the clarity of long-suppressed memories. She had rarely visited friends' houses in the days before her parents' deaths; but she well remembered that in some houses, she'd never once seen the front door in use. It was always the back door for friends.

In the case of this house, as with many others, the back door led into the kitchen, with the cellar door at their left as they knocked snow off their boots and stepped in. Mrs. Appleton went directly into the kitchen, which had completely changed from Leslie's memories, and carelessly hung her coat on a coat tree before beginning to bustle around getting out the makings of cocoa. "Just have a seat where you like," she said breezily.

Christian settled into a kitchen chair, watching the elderly lady moving with slow, measured, yet confident steps along the cabinets, while Leslie stood in the middle of the floor and carefully absorbed the room's interior. Not one thing was the same, she realized, except perhaps the most basic layout of the room. Oh, sure, the window over the kitchen sink was in the same place, and so was the refrigerator, and the cabinets and table space were where she remembered. But the cabinets themselves were obviously newer than the ones the Hamiltons had left behind on that day more than thirty-two years before, and the refrigerator was a different model. There was now a dishwasher, which the Hamiltons hadn't had here, and the walls had been painted a sunny yellow with flowered ceramic tiles forming a backsplash along the countertops and creating a chair-rail effect along the walls. Even the linoleum floor was new, a different color and pattern from what Leslie thought she remembered. "This doesn't seem like our kitchen," she finally said.

Mrs. Appleton paused and peered at her sympathetically. "Oh no, dear…when Fred and I bought the house, we had to have the remaining rooms completely remodeled. Too much smoke and water damage, you know. Does anything about it look familiar, though?"

Leslie focused on her finally and smiled in apology. "Afraid not. I mean, the room's laid out the same way, but that's the only similarity."

Mrs. Appleton chuckled and resumed her quest for the needed items to make their cocoa. "I understand. Well, let's get the cocoa made, and while you're here I'll get the scrapbooks Ingunna and I made together."

Fifteen minutes later they were sitting around the table, each one with a steaming mug of cocoa topped with miniature marshmallows, with five scrapbooks in the middle awaiting their perusal. Mrs. Appleton pulled the top book off the stack and laid it out so that both Christian and Leslie could see it, and pointed out photographs of her various trips with Ingunna in the past. Most of the pictures were black-and-white snapshots, interspersed with colorful postcards here and there. "How long ago did you take all these trips?" Leslie asked in amazement, seeing pictures labeled with locations from what appeared to be every state in the union, along with all the Canadian provinces.

"Your mother was going to college at the time, dear," said Mrs. Appleton. "Jeremiah—your grandfather—had been dead almost ten years, and he'd left Ingunna and Shannon a nice bit of money, so they weren't hurting and Ingunna could work part-time till Shannon was old enough to look after herself after school. When Shannon started college down in New Haven, Ingunna and I took the opportunity to look around this country and get up into Canada too. We sent ourselves postcards for the scrapbooks." She smiled. "That was the only thing my Fred and I disagreed on. I always loved traveling, he couldn't stand being away from home even one night. So we'd take our vacations at the same time, but I'd go gallivanting off with Ingunna, and he'd keep an eye on the house, go bowling or shooting pool with friends of his, that sort of thing. He preferred it that way." Mrs. Appleton paused and smiled reminiscently. "My Fred's been gone nine years now, ten this year, but I have so many fond memories of him, I'm not too lonely. We had such a good life, it seems like a sacrilege to be unhappy when I remember him."

Christian and Leslie looked at each other. "That's beautiful," Leslie murmured, aware that her own memories of deceased family members were too often touched with sadness, or anger in the case of Michael. Christian nodded in silent agreement, and she was sure he was thinking as well of his deceased parents and oldest brother.

Mrs. Appleton smiled. "I feel the same way when I remember Ingunna. The only thing that bothers me is the way she died, poor soul. She didn't deserve that, not a bit of it. She always seemed…oh, I don't know, worried, once you were born, dear. She'd have denied it with her last molecule of air, but I tell you, she favored you over your little sisters. Not that she didn't love the little ones, oh no—she adored them. But you had a special status in her eyes. It's as if she knew something."

Leslie almost murmured that she had, but something made her refrain. After a few seconds Christian inquired, "What made you decide to buy this house after the fire?"

"Oh yes. I don't think Michael Hamilton much cared who bought the house, just that someone bought it. But I tell you, the first time Fred and I came over here, I was sure I felt Ingunna here." She saw Leslie's confused look. "Your mother wrote us a couple of weeks after you'd left for California, dear. She wanted to know if we could find a way to get inside and send anything that might have been overlooked, or maybe even survived the fire. Well, to tell you the truth, there was no way anything in the bedroom wing could have escaped, and the rest of the place was empty. But the oddest thing happened…well, here, let me show it to you instead of trying to explain." She got up and departed again, moving in that hitching, hobbling gait characteristic of very old people, yet seeming to dart for all the urgency in her movements.

Christian and Leslie looked at each other again. "It seems to me I might have been right," he said with a smile and a wink. "You're going to find something here after all."

"It can't possibly be anything," Leslie protested halfheartedly, but she didn't bother to argue the point when his smile became comically smug. She had a strange feeling he was right, and unconsciously gripped the table edge, anticipation making tidal waves with the cocoa in her stomach.


	4. Chapter 4

§ § § -- January 7, 2006

Mrs. Appleton returned cradling a black box in her hands; this she presented to Leslie. "I think I'd better give this to you to keep, dear," she said, settling back into her chair with slow effort. "I expect Ingunna would have wanted you to have it."

"What's this?" Leslie asked, gingerly examining the box.

"Just an ordinary little tin box. Scorched from the fire. You'd think it would've melted from the heat—there, you can see it's a bit warped in the back of the lid there. But that's all. Made me wonder, and I wondered even more when I saw what was inside."

Leslie set the box on the table and lifted the lid; inside was a thick, rubber-banded stack of letters, browned on the edges but otherwise intact. She read the top envelope, which was addressed in elegant script to Ingunna at this address. When she saw the return address, she gasped softly, making Christian sit up and stare intently at her. The name written in the corner of the envelope was Gefjun Liljefors.

"_Mormor_ knew someone in the Liljefors family!" Leslie breathed, and saw Christian's eyes slowly widen with amazement. He leaned over to peer at the letters.

"_Herregud,"_ he murmured. "The story of how they met must be extraordinary, if only we knew someone who could tell it to us."

Mrs. Appleton was watching him. "I always wondered about that. We met the lady on a trip to Sweden." That made Christian look up sharply, and though she registered the provenance of the movement, she continued speaking. "We were touring Ingunna's birthplace, you know. And there she was, very lovely lady, sitting at a little café waiting for us. They jabbered away in Swedish, or something anyway, for a few minutes, and then Ingunna introduced us. Said that it was her friend's first-ever trip outside Lilla Jordsö and it was a momentous occasion for her. For some reason she made that sound significant, but the way she said it, seemed to me I was just supposed to know and accept that it was unusual. So I held my tongue, but oh, the questions I wanted to ask." She met Christian's gaze. "I don't suppose you could shed a little light, after all these years."

Christian smiled. "I can't tell you much, because the Liljefors clan has always been very secretive. But I know this. They've been unjustly persecuted for most of their history, and only in the last decade or so have they begun to emerge from their shell. Even now they have a long way to go, but some members have made unusual strides. One of Leslie's friends belongs to the clan, and my nephew is married to another member."

"Why were they persecuted?" Mrs. Appleton asked.

Christian frowned and settled back in his chair. "It's a very long story. As I said, they are very secretive, and they don't open up much to outsiders." He considered the question, while Leslie watched him, and then looked up at Mrs. Appleton again. Carefully he said, "You could say that the reasons are quasi-religious."

To their relief, Mrs. Appleton accepted this. "Oh, I see. Such a shame that people who profess to fear the same god so often refuse to see eye to eye on _how_ to fear that god." She sighed gently and raised her cocoa mug. "At any rate, Ingunna's friend was delightful. We had such a lovely lunch together. Ingunna was thrilled to be meeting the lady, and I seem to remember that they'd been corresponding for years already at that point…"

"When was that?" Leslie asked.

Mrs. Appleton thought back. "Oh, let me see now…hmm, that must've been back in the early sixties. Your mother and father had just reconciled after an affair the man had had. Shannon told us about it. She was afraid there'd never be children." She snapped her fingers. "Yes, I remember now. Michael's parents had just recently been killed in a house fire up in Chelsea where they lived, and Shannon had been hoping to have a baby to carry on the family now that Michael was the last one left. Michael had gone off and had an affair the year before, and their reconciliation was slow going. Seemed like they'd finally gotten things patched up, and Ingunna thought it would be all right to go ahead and take that Scandinavian trip we'd been planning. That's when we met her friend." She squinted at the envelopes that Leslie had lifted out of the box. "I can't even begin to pronounce her name, no idea what it's supposed to be. I keep wishing her name had been something like Anna or Ingrid, but it had to be that strange amalgamation."

Christian laughed softly. "It's pronounced 'YEF-yoon'. It's a very old _jordisk_ name, going back to Norse mythology. Gefjun was an attendant of the goddess Frigg, Odin's mother. This attendant is supposed to have slept with the king of Sweden and carved out what is now Lake Mälaren there. I think it means something like 'giver of wealth'."

"Ah." Mrs. Appleton grinned. "This is turning out to be very educational."

Christian and Leslie laughed. "You're not the only one," Leslie admitted, hesitantly thumbing through the letters. "I never actually knew all that much about _mormor_, to be honest. I guess I was too young to have many questions about her past. You know how it is when you're a little kid. Grandparents exist to spoil you and take your side when your parents seem to be against you."

They all laughed at that, and Mrs. Appleton nodded. "Seems so, yes. Well, as I said, dear, you keep those letters, take them along home with you."

"Was _mormor_'s friend around her age, do you think?" Leslie wondered.

Mrs. Appleton thought back again. "Hard to say," she mused at some length. "She was so pretty, as I said. A heart-shaped face, blue eyes, silky blonde hair—yes, it was a lovely golden shade. She looked younger than either Ingunna or I, but she was one of those women whose age is impossible to even guess at. I suppose it's possible she's still alive."

Christian and Leslie traded a quick glance that said they'd talk this one out later. "It could be," Christian agreed. "Could we see the other scrapbooks?"

They passed another hour or so looking at the travel scrapbooks, but the box of letters seemed to be burning holes in Leslie's palms, and Christian could see her increasing restlessness. Some of it was alleviated when Mrs. Appleton took them on a tour of the house, but even when Leslie paused to mentally juxtapose the original blueprint with the current one, she still wanted to get away, to examine this new piece of her grandmother's history. It occurred to her, standing here, that while she would always be a native of this place, it was part of her past now, and there was no place for it in her present. The revelation was surprising, yet not; she understood that she had somehow, unknowingly, come to this conclusion long before, so quietly that she couldn't pin down a possible time that it might have happened.

Finally Christian came up with an excuse to go, and Mrs. Appleton wished him well in his new business venture. It wasn't till their chauffeur had gotten them back on I-84 east that he spoke. "Your brain was going like a rocket in there, wasn't it?"

She grinned at that. "Yeah, it was. But it wasn't all about these letters." She explained her realization that Connecticut was a piece of history for her now, and he nodded slowly, glancing out the back window in the direction of Plainville as if he could see through the numerous hills that had already swallowed it from view.

"Do you think you'll ever go back, then?" he asked.

The question made her train of thought stop cold, and she too stared back towards her birthplace; but she already knew what her answer would be. "No," she finally said, so softly that in her peripheral vision she saw him lean forward in order to hear her better. "I don't think I'll ever see it again."

"But you were born here," said Christian, astonished.

"I know." Leslie frowned, finally turned to look at him. "But…I don't know how to explain this. It's just that…whatever I took away from here, it's not like I'm going to lose it if I don't come back and replenish or replace it. My family isn't here anymore, not even _mormor_ now that she's…here." She carefully patted the urn at her side. "Even my ancestors are buried somewhere else. Michael's parents are buried in a Chelsea cemetery, and when my grandfather Jeremiah Reed died, Mom and _mormor_ were living in Mystic. I think that's where his grave is. I never knew them anyway, so when I think about them, it's in terms of history books rather than memories."

"What did you take away, then?" he queried gently.

"My…my sense of self, I think. I was old enough when we left to have a certain outlook on life and a certain way of thinking of things. That's all I really need from here. I don't have to have refrigerator magnets or souvenir T-shirts or old color snapshots. I have what my mother taught me here, and that's the most important thing."

Christian hiked a brow and noted, "But Mr. Roarke still teases you about being that stubborn New Englander."

She laughed and agreed, "I know, because once in a while some weird little cultural bubble boils up to the surface of my mind, and I usually have to explain it as a piece of my New England roots. Ancestrally and by birth, yes, I'm a New Englander. But insofar as my sense of belonging to someplace, and feeling at home there, is concerned, I think I'm really a Fantasy Islander. I've planted roots there too, after all."

He nodded. "Seems to me you're more at home there than anywhere else. Maybe you don't think I notice very much around me—especially when I'm involved in something to do with computers—" At this he grinned and she let out a laugh. "But the fact is, I guess I'm very attuned to you. I could sense a certain tension in you all through our stay in Plainville: in the cemetery office, during our visit with Mrs. Appleton, even in transit between the two and on the way to town in the first place. This may be your birthplace, but that's the only tie you feel you have to the area any longer."

"You noticed that?" she asked, amazed.

Christian shrugged. "Ask Mr. Roarke if you don't believe me, but he hasn't seen you anywhere except Fantasy Island—not that that matters since he knows things no one else knows, things he shouldn't know at all. Anyway, it's not just here that you have that tension. I sense it in you when we visit Lilla Jordsö too."

Leslie felt her face heat with embarrassment. "Oh no," she mumbled.

Laughing a little, he said, "Oh, don't worry about it. I tense up as well, generally en route to see the family. There must be some subconscious reflex in me that still hasn't figured out that Father and Arnulf are both dead and unable to harass me anymore. Though I do relax once I'm around my brother and sister and all their assorted descendants. Now if we could knock the self-righteous, judgmental streaks out of Kristina and Anna-Laura…"

She joined in his laughter. "Don't bet on it, my love. So I guess what you're saying is that I totally relax only on Fantasy Island, which means I think of it as home, both consciously and subconsciously."

"Exactly so. I've often thought it's too bad your mother didn't extend her stay when she visited. You should have been a native."

"There are times I've wished she did," Leslie admitted, half shrugging. "For that matter, she probably should have. The doctor attending her through her pregnancy with me must have been some sort of quack if he didn't at least recommend she stay put till I'd been born. On the other hand, Mom and Michael would've had to buy me a plane ticket to get back to Connecticut if she _had_ stayed." This she said with a wry grin, and Christian burst into laughter.

"I suppose that's one argument for her departure before your birth." He settled back in his seat while his chuckles died out. "So I presume you're going to ask me at some point to translate those letters your grandmother got from Gefjun Liljefors."

"Maybe so," Leslie said. "I can read some _jordiska_ now, you know. But you can expect a holler from me when I come across words I don't know."

"I'll take that as fair warning. I suppose in the meantime I'd better start going through applications. After all, you did say something about hoping we could all be home in time for our anniversary."

"So I did. Well, then, happy hunting." He grinned at her; she grinned back, and watched the snow-clad New England countryside slide past while he extracted a sheaf of papers from the briefcase he'd brought along and began to sift through them.

When they reached the hotel, they were distracted for a while by the triplets, who were wide awake and delighted to see their parents. Christian took time out from sorting through the applications to play with them alongside Leslie; when the children began yawning in mid-afternoon, they put them down for naps. They then retreated to their adjoining suite, where Christian paused to watch Leslie sit at a table beside the window, contemplating the contents of the box before slowly lifting out the bundle of letters. Then he got out the laptop he always took with him, which was outfitted with electrical plug adapters so that he could operate it in both Lilla Jordsö and Fantasy Island, and set it up, shortly signing into the castle e-mail address he still kept.

Leslie finally noticed what he was doing. "What're you up to?"

"I'm going to contact Gerhard and ask him to have Liselotta e-mail me. With any luck, Liselotta will remember your grandmother's pen pal. The time difference is less, it's only five hours between here and Lilla Jordsö, so we might hear something before bedtime." He winked at her surprised smile, then located his nephew's address in the e-mail address book and began typing in that lightning-fast way of his.

"I hope she knows something," Leslie mumbled.

"If not," Christian suggested, "you might try contacting your friend Frida and asking her if she—or more likely her mother—might happen to know anything about Gefjun. If she and your grandmother were corresponding, there's good reason to believe either of them would have some knowledge of the lady. You might then find out how they met, among other things."

Leslie nodded, and Christian sent his message before going back to the stack of applications he had been perusing in the car. Curiosity made her start looking for postmarks on the envelopes; the most recent one, on the top, was smudged, but legible enough for Leslie to make out the year 1972 on it. "What year was Liselotta born?" she asked.

Christian looked up, then frowned in thought. "I think it was 1973," he said. "Why?"

"The latest postmark on these is from 1972. If Liselotta knows anything about Gefjun, it'll only be hearsay. Our best bet might be Frida's mother."

"Well, we'll wait till we hear from Gerhard and Liselotta first. You may not even have to go to Frida. Let's just try to—" The ringing phone interrupted him and he sighed with mild frustration. "I'll never get through these at this rate. Christian Enstad speaking." He looked over his shoulder at Leslie as he said, "Oh, yes, hello, Ben. Tomorrow? Well enough, then, what time? Oh, I see. No, I don't think so, it's better we not have them with us. Yes, actually, I've chosen three candidates for interviews already—too many more to go through, I'd better get back to that. No, no, I think it's time to stop taking applications, or we'll never get people hired and the office up and running. You have _how_ many?" Christian rolled his eyes and pointed at the phone, then lifted the same finger to his temple and rotated it, making Leslie slap a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh. "All right, just drop them off at the front desk sometime this afternoon if you can, and tell the front desk to let me know they're here. No, there's no need. I appreciate your efforts, but I daresay I need all the time I can find to sort through the ones I have and set aside those I want to speak with. No, don't worry about that, spend the weekend with your family. I'll call you tomorrow evening and have you set up appointments with the people I've chosen. Yes, yes, thank you…yes, you too. Goodbye." He hung up with a too-quick movement and sighed, letting his head fall back for a moment or two. "That man can _talk!"_

Leslie laughed aloud this time. "So I hear. What's he been up to?"

"Collecting applications and making telephone calls, as far as I can ascertain. He has an interview set up with a PBS television programmer for Monday morning at ten, and says that the station wants both of us to be present. I was willing enough to agree to that, pending your approval, but then he tried to push for including the triplets, and I told him no. He has two hundred more applications for me, and I'm terrified that by the time he gets around to leaving them here for me to pick up, there'll actually be more than that. I decided it was time to stop taking any more." He sighed. "I knew this place was filled with institutes of higher education and thousands of graduates therefrom, but I didn't realize so many of them would be computer specialists. I already have more than a hundred and fifty applications with me, and he wants to double that. I don't know how I'll ever get through this and not miss our anniversary."

"Oh." Leslie winced, disappointment sluicing through her.

Christian grinned and came to sit opposite her at the table. "I didn't say I wouldn't give it my best attempt, I just said I don't know how I'll do it. He offered to help, but I've already told him my hiring methods, and I'd prefer he stick to the technical and mechanical aspects of getting the place off the ground. I'd bring in Jörgen as I did in Santi Arcuros, but I'm afraid the notice is too short, and he informed me the Sundborg office is quite busy now in any case."

"I'd volunteer if I thought I could do it," Leslie said a little wistfully, meeting his surprised gaze. "But I've never seen you actually interviewing and hiring people, so I'm afraid I don't qualify. Maybe I'd better just stick to waiting to hear from Liselotta."

Christian chuckled and grasped her hand across the table. "I appreciate your willingness, believe me. Oh, I don't know. Perhaps that's my only solution—to bring in Jörgen. I think I'll give him a call." He squeezed her hand and arose to make the call; in the meantime, Leslie finally opened the 1972 envelope she'd been studying and withdrew a slightly charred sheet of paper, filled with the same elegant handwriting that graced the envelope. As she'd suspected, it was in _jordiska_; but she was able to read some of it, to her delight.

_Dearest Ingunna,_ she read. _I am glad you are happy about your new living arrangements. Yes, even though it is a sign of things to come. I shall truly miss you, my friend. It has been a…_ Here Leslie had to stop, confronted with a word she didn't know. She sighed and reread the first three sentences over again; only then did the impact of their meaning register with her. She stared at the gracefully formed letters of the _jordiska_ words, feeling as though all the blood in her head had made a slalom run for her feet. _She knew! _Mormor_ must have told her what Mom found out from Father, and that's what Gefjun's referring to in this letter! I've got to get Christian's help with this one._

"Are you all right, my Rose?" she heard Christian's concerned voice across from her, and looked up sharply; she hadn't even realized he'd come to sit with her again.

"I just started reading this last letter. I got hung up on an unfamiliar word, but I could understand enough to read between the lines. Here." She thrust the letter at him. "Please, my love, read that out loud to me."

Christian shrugged slightly and peered at the letter for a moment before clearing his throat. " 'Dearest Ingunna, I'm glad you're happy about your new living arrangements. Yes, even though it's a sign of things to come. I shall truly miss you, my friend. It has been a privilege to have your friendship all these years.

" 'I think your knowledge will be tempered with the happiness of living under the same roof with your daughter and your precious granddaughters. It should be a happy year for you, and it will give little Leslie happy memories to keep after that sad day when…' " Christian stopped and lifted his horrified gaze to hers. _"Herregud,_ Leslie, does this refer to what I think it does?"

She nodded, feeling a small hillock arrowing up in her throat. _"Mormor_ told Gefjun about Mom's visit to Fantasy Island and what she found out from Father. That's the only answer. _Mormor_ must have written to Gefjun right after she moved in with us, and Gefjun knew what it meant. This must have been their last correspondence. I wonder if _mormor_ answered this. I'd…I'd have thought they'd keep on writing right up till…till the day of the fire." She paused to try to flatten out the lump, then drew in a breath and looked at him. "It makes me wonder…I mean, just being a Liljefors would've been enough for most people to understand how she could know and accept that kind of information, if those people knew about the clan. What I'm wondering is whether Gefjun knew about Fantasy Island because of _mormor_'s telling her about Mom's trip, or…"

"Or," Christian filled in when she couldn't, "if it was Gefjun herself who told your grandmother about the island." She nodded again, and he smiled a little. "We might never be able to find out the answer to that, my darling, but I think it's entirely possible that Gefjun might have told her." He paused a moment, thinking, worrying a corner of the page with one finger; then he focused on her again. "I know you were only eight when your grandmother died, and that you admitted to Mrs. Appleton that you didn't know much about her life before you were born. But…what _do_ you know? Especially now, with the clarity of adult sight—what do you remember that might give you some idea as to what your grandmother knew on her own? I suppose I'm asking whether she was the sort of person who was already disposed to believing in the things that most people dismiss as myth and superstition nowadays."

Leslie closed her eyes. "I'm not sure," she murmured at length, her voice trailing away as she cast back. She dredged up every memory she could reach that involved Ingunna in some way, trying to recall conversations, observations, overheard remarks… Finally she sighed and opened her eyes. "All I remember now is one conversation I had with her just after she'd moved in with us. I was helping her go through her things, and there was an old brochure that talked about Fantasy Island. I don't know how far back it went, but it was getting yellow with age, I remember that. I asked her about it, and she told me it was a magical place. I was at the age where you still believe in everything, from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny to flying carpets and mermaids. She was very solemn when she told me about it. Well, not really solemn, but absolutely certain of what she was talking about—she had the conviction of her own beliefs. She had a dreamy look about her when she told me about it, and I was enchanted. It sounded like a fairy tale come to life, and I was so busy coming up with all the fantastical things I thought must happen there that I never pursued the issue with her. If I'd been older, I could've asked where she got that brochure and why, and whether she'd ever planned to go there, and so forth."

Christian nodded understanding. "You were what, seven then? We're not much for mystery-solving at that age…we prefer to dwell on the magical, as you said." He grinned. "Of course, you found out much later that all those fantastical things you dreamed up truly do happen there."

"Yeah," she agreed and laughed. "Anyway, it sort of lends some credence to the idea that _mormor_ already believed in these things, but that still doesn't answer the question of whether this was entirely on her own, or if she was influenced by Gefjun. It all depends on when they met each other. That, and what Gefjun might have chosen to reveal about herself and her family to _mormor."_

"A definite mystery," Christian said and smiled. "Well, if we're very lucky, we'll get at least partial answers. And perhaps Mr. Roarke knows something as well." He turned to the laptop and checked his e-mail, then grinned. "Aha—there's a message from Liselotta here." He opened the message and read it aloud, translating it for her. " 'Hello, Gerhard told me you have something to ask me about. I'll try to the best of my ability to answer your questions. I'll be awake late this evening, I am looking at seed catalogs for spring. So I'll watch for your question. Love, Liselotta.' " He winked at her again, something Leslie found oddly reassuring, and swiftly typed out a message to Liselotta, pausing a couple of times to think about his wording.

"Sounds like a long message," Leslie ventured.

"Somewhat. Here, listen to this and tell me if you think it's all right. 'Hello, Liselotta. Leslie has just received a packet of letters written to her grandmother by someone who is probably related to you. It seems they knew each other for many years. Leslie's grandmother's name was Ingunna Hansson Reed, and her pen pal was Gefjun Liljefors. Do you know what relationship she has to you? Did you know her? Is she still living? We would truly appreciate any information you may have. If you don't know or you're not certain, that's quite all right. Leslie can check with her friend Frida in Sweden. Love, Christian.' Do you think that's enough?"

"That's perfect," said Leslie. "Go ahead and send it." She bit her lip as Christian sent the message, then grinned a little, feeling curiously hopeful. "I feel a little bit like Nancy Drew or somebody like that."

"I suppose that makes me one of the Hardy Boys," Christian quipped, and her grin got wider. "This is becoming a truly intriguing mystery. I almost hate to tear myself away from it and look through those bulldozer-loads of applications, but duty calls, like it or not."

"Did you talk Jörgen into coming here?" she asked.

"Mm-hmm. I told him to get the first possible flights and to use company funds, and to call me when he arrives here in Boston. With his help, we stand a chance of saving our anniversary." They both laughed, and he brought back a stack of applications to go through while they waited for a reply from Liselotta.


	5. Chapter 5

§ § § -- January 8, 2006

Leslie awoke to a weight on her stomach and squinted through bleary eyes at a blob of color just in front of her face. She blinked away the cloudiness of sleep and grinned when she recognized Susanna sitting atop her; this was their oldest child's way of announcing she was ready for breakfast, employed every morning without fail at home and in any other place she could get to her parents' bed and climb onto it. "Hungry, are we?" she murmured.

Her voice made Christian's even breathing catch, and he rolled over and opened his eyes, blinking as she had done. "Ah, I see the young lady's made herself thoroughly at home here. I don't suppose Ingrid knows she's in here."

"I'm sure she does—I'd even bet she let Susanna in." Leslie yawned and heard Susanna giggle. "Okay, you little imp. Daddy and I are getting up, I promise."

"Maybe there's some more information from Liselotta," Christian mused, swinging out of bed to boot up his laptop. "Do you want the shower first? If so, I'll deal with the little intruder here, if you like."

"Sure, but I'll wait and see if there's anything from Liselotta first." Leslie rolled over toward her left, deliberately dumping Susanna off her stomach and onto the mattress in Christian's newly vacated space. Susanna squealed with laughter and Leslie, playing along, grinned and grabbed her daughter's foot. "I gotcha!"

"Eat, Mommy!" Susanna insisted, single-minded even in the middle of her breathless shrieks of mirth while she and her mother played together. Christian was laughing as well while he checked on his e-mail.

"We will, but I bet you can't get away," Leslie teased, reaching over to tickle the little girl and tousle her already sleep-tossed hair. Susanna yanked her foot out of Leslie's grasp, only to find herself swept into her mother's embrace and tickled energetically. The child's screeches of delight brought Ingrid, Karina and Tobias in from the adjoining room. In seconds Leslie was inundated with toddlers, while a giggling Ingrid retreated to the other room long enough to pick out clothing for the children and Christian scrolled through the messages on his screen.

"Find anything?" Leslie managed to call out in between playfully grabbing kids at random and tickling whoever was in her clutches at the moment.

"Yes, there's something here, but it seems to me you're otherwise occupied." Christian got up and joined his wife and children on the bed, plucking Tobias off the mattress and deftly tickling him. At Leslie's laughing reaction, he teased, "I couldn't let you have all the fun, could I now?"

"Guess that wouldn't be fair," she agreed through her laughter, and he grinned, playfully chasing his son across the mattress as Tobias crawled frantically in his mother's direction. It was almost half an hour before Leslie finally got into the shower and Ingrid was able to start dressing the triplets, with help from Christian.

By the time she got out, breakfast had arrived, courtesy of room service, and Ingrid was closely supervising the triplets while Christian sat watching CNN on TV. He looked around as Leslie moved deeper into the room. "They keep rehashing yesterday's press conference at the castle in regard to Esbjörn's return, especially the reasons for it," he said. His brother-in-law, presumed dead for the past twenty-three years, had in fact been kidnapped and held in a compound near Stockholm throughout that time. He had escaped on Christmas morning and been brought back to Lilla Jordsö by Daniel, Gabriella's husband, who had been visiting his mother for the holiday.

"No wonder," Leslie said. "Nobody expects something like that to happen after so much time. I still can't get over how good he looks for someone who was shut away in a cellar for two decades."

"Except that he's incredibly pale," Christian kidded lightly, grinning. "I'm sure they'll introduce him to the wonders of e-mail, so that we can stay in touch." He got up and shut off the set, shifting his attention to the triplets. "I'm truly amazed at how lucky we are with these three. They'll eat just about anything. I don't think I was ever quite that adaptable."

Leslie laughed. "I probably wasn't either, but I'm pickier about what I drink than what I eat. I hope I can conceal that from the kids till they're old enough to decide for themselves what they like and don't like."

Christian grinned, but before he could say anything the phone rang, making all three children swivel their heads around and watch their father while he answered it. "Good morning, Ben," he said, shooting Leslie a resigned look that made her hide a snicker behind one hand. "No, no, we're just having breakfast. Oh, yes, that…of course. We couldn't be there for the press conference, but we were around long enough to welcome him home. Yes…quite the shock after so long. The interviewer? No, I see no reason to, unless he asks about it. The trial will speak for itself." Ingela Vikslund, who had once been Christian's girlfriend for a few months and who had tried to pass off her son as his, had turned out to be ultimately responsible for Esbjörn's attempted murder and subsequent incarceration, all so that his plan to prevent her father's oil concern from drilling right offshore would be thwarted. She had been extradited from Malta to await trial for conspiracy, kidnapping and attempted murder; though it turned out that her father and Kings Arnulf I and II had been involved in the plot to varying degrees, she was the only survivor and would thus be standing trial alone. Christian was still wondering what the repercussions would be on the royal family.

Leslie sighed sympathetically, but didn't interfere with his phone call, knowing he'd handle Ben Keller with ease after a lifetime of dealing with the far nosier media. After checking on the triplets, she crossed the room to her husband's open laptop and clicked on the message he'd received from Liselotta. It was in _jordiska_, of course, but she could make it out all the same. _Dear Christian, I spoke with my mother and she remembers a woman named Gefjun, but the lady disappeared soon after I was born. Mamma says that she was there one evening when everyone went to sleep; the next morning she was gone. No one has heard of her since that time. I am sorry I can't be of further help. Perhaps Leslie's friend or her mother might have something better to tell? Give her and the children my love. Love, Liselotta._ Leslie sighed softly to herself and straightened up, only then noticing that Christian was watching her. He was still on the phone, but hadn't spoken in a few minutes; evidently Ben Keller was really on a roll.

When their gazes met, he carefully covered the speaker with one palm and said softly, "He's carrying on about the possible repercussions Ingela's trial will have on Vikslund Oil and how he'd love to get his hands on the business and turn it around. He saw the gap in management even before I did." Leslie laughed, and he smirked cheerfully and returned his attention to the call.

She reread Liselotta's message and pondered it, then frowned as puzzle pieces clicked in place in her mind. Liselotta was born in 1973—the same year of the Connecticut fire and the subsequent move to Susanville. Ingunna had told Gefjun what Shannon had related her fate was to be. Gefjun had vanished in 1973—perhaps right after the fire! Leslie thumped back into the chair and brought up a reply message, then proceeded to peck out a response in her still-slightly-primitive _jordiska_. _Dear Liselotta, this is Leslie. Thank you for the information that your mother gave you. I am sorry if my _jordiska_ is bad. What day were you born? My grandmother died in 1973, the same year you say Gefjun disappeared. The date she died is July 24. I think perhaps Gefjun disappeared after this day. Can you tell me if this is true? Thank you! Love, Leslie._ She read it over, bit her lip and glanced at Christian, then decided she couldn't wait for him to proofread her words and sent the e-mail.

"Yes, I think so too," Christian said. "As a matter of fact—" He let the sentence hang; apparently Keller had cut him off. She watched him standing there looking increasingly exasperated; once he looked at his watch, and that made her break into laughter. The sound caught his attention, and he covered the mouthpiece of the phone again. "Please, my Rose, rescue me. Create some imaginary crisis and insist that I help you," he begged.

She giggled. "One crisis, coming up." Christian uncovered the phone, and she cleared her throat and called out, loudly enough to carry through the phone, "Christian, my love, I've got a computer problem over here and nobody but you can solve it…"

She saw Christian stifle a snicker before he drew in a breath and exclaimed into the phone, "I'm sorry to interrupt, Ben, but Leslie needs my help. Of course, we'll talk later. Have a good day. Yes, yes…yes. Yes, goodbye." He dropped the receiver into the cradle and groaned loudly. _"Herregud! _ I'm eternally grateful he's going to be in charge of this branch and I'll be returning to Fantasy Island. I already feel sorry for the folks who'll be working with him." Leslie laughed, and he sauntered around the bed, ruffling Karina's hair along the way, and peered at the laptop screen. "What're you up to over here?"

She explained what she'd done. "My language was probably kind of primitive, but I couldn't wait for you to check it before I sent it. I've got a hunch and I'm working on it."

He nodded slowly. "You wrote it in _jordiska?"_ he inquired with a slightly sly look.

"Just thought it'd be easier for her to read. I did apologize in case it was bad."

He burst out laughing. "Good for you. That's an interesting theory you have, anyway. I'm very eager to see how it all turns out." He glanced at the children, then at his watch, and heaved a sigh. "I think we dare go out for lunch somewhere. I want to actually see some of this city before I find myself cooped up in an aromatic office, assessing strangers' computer abilities. Even that interview isn't till tomorrow morning, so let's use the free time in a more rewarding way."

"Sounds good to me. Besides," she noted with a grin, "it'll get you away from the phone so Ben Keller can't trap you with his novel-length anecdotes."

"You know me too well. All right, then, let's bundle up the kids and go."

Leslie had wanted to take them on the T, Boston's subway system, but they were just too famous for that; they had to settle for being chauffeured around town. As they passed the gargantuan mirror that was the John Hancock Tower, Leslie pointed to the top, today shrouded in clouds that threatened more snow. "There used to be an observatory on the top floor," she told Christian, "where you could go and look out at the city from any side of the building. There was a history-of-Boston exhibit in there, a kind of three-dimensional diorama complete with lights and special effects, that talked about the Revolutionary War days. The map showed the city's topography as it looked back then, and at the end they'd have lighting to show the city as its map looks now, where all the different marshes and so on have been filled in to build the various neighborhoods like Back Bay. They had a gift shop too. On a really clear day you could see into New Hampshire."

"You speak of it in the past tense," Christian noticed. "What happened?"

"They closed it after the September 11 attacks," Leslie said. "I don't guess they'll ever reopen it, and that's a real shame. Mom took the twins and me up a couple of times, when we came to Boston so Michael could visit his parents' graves down in Chelsea. I can still remember looking across the city—Kelly thought it was so high, she asked once if we could see our house from there. And I really loved that historical diorama."

Christian glanced through the back windshield of the limo as the tower receded. "I'm sure the triplets would have found it exciting as well."

"I wish we were here in the spring," Leslie admitted. "We could have done more, maybe. Especially the swan boats in the Public Garden. The kids would've really had a blast with that. It's nice and slow, just their speed, and they'd've gotten a kick out of feeding the pigeons. And of course, the duckling statues…and just wandering around chasing the birds and people-watching."

"And people watching _us,_ undoubtedly," Christian postscripted dryly. "Sometimes you speak as if we were still private citizens."

She blushed. "I forget…it's just that I start remembering, and I wish we could give our kids the same memories."

He smiled. "I know. I'm not trying to scold you, but unfortunately you no longer have that luxury, and I never did. And it would be patently unfair to close the whole park just so we could do that without getting molested…not to mention probably impossible."

She detected a faint wistful note in his voice and bit her lip, revisiting an idea she'd been carrying in the back of her mind since October. This wasn't the time or place to bring it up, but she resolved to make a note to herself to bring it up with Roarke the first chance she got. Tucking it away in a corner of her memory, she patted his knee. "Well, if this is the only way we can give our kids a taste of the big bad world, then so be it. Hey, maybe we can swing by your future new office somewhere along the way."

§ § § -- January 9, 2006

"As a matter of fact, I think Boston will be a wonderful place to do business. I've had a very eager and enthusiastic response to the opening of my latest branch, and everyone's been very helpful and welcoming." Christian grinned at the interviewer, that professionally warm smile that Leslie had grown used to over her years of knowing him. While it was a practiced expression, it wasn't dead or automatic. She simply knew the difference between the warmth he exhibited toward the public and the warmth he exhibited to their friends—and the special warmth he showed her. "I've heard stories from my family on their travels, about how supposedly the southern states have a corner on hospitality. I'll never believe that again."

The interviewer, a man in his mid-fifties or thereabouts, laughed with Christian; like so many others, he was drawn into Christian's genuine friendliness. He had relaxed noticeably throughout the session; in the beginning he and the staff he worked with had been very carefully correct and formal before the two, bowing or curtsying, remaining reserved. It hadn't taken long for Christian's demeanor to set them at ease. "We appreciate that, Your Highness. We're used to jokes about 'northern hospitality' and 'southern efficiency', so I'm glad to hear someone thinks we're not totally devoid of friendliness." They laughed again, and he turned to Leslie. "Your Highness, I understand you were born right here in New England." Leslie nodded, and he queried, "Do you miss it?"

"I was young when we left," said Leslie, "just eight. I think it's the memories I miss. But it was good to get back and see some places I remember from my childhood. We did our version of a sightseeing tour around the city yesterday with our children. I just wish we could have seen some more. It's hard when you have to be confined to a limousine under constant protection. I realize my husband has a reputation for shunning the media, but he likes very much to get out and meet people. He always did on his trips for the royal family, before we were married and he moved to Fantasy Island. When we go back to Lilla Jordsö, he still likes to do that."

"That would explain why people seem so eager to work for you," the interviewer said.

"I suppose so. The actual interviewing process is tedious, but I do like to meet people and get to know them a bit. I must admit I have rather high and exacting standards for my employees, but whenever I've conducted job interviews, I've always attracted applicants with well-polished skills and high performance records." Christian cleared his throat. "Pardon me. Anyhow, I'm deliberately speeding up the hiring process here. Our fifth wedding anniversary is just a week from today, and since I missed last year's, I'm determined to be with my wife for this year's. I'm hoping to have all my people in place and the office ready to begin operations by next Monday. At that point, if we can achieve that, my manager, Ben Keller, will take charge of the actual opening and report directly to me."

Leslie watched the byplay between Christian and their interviewer; most of the questions had been directed to him, which she didn't mind. She still didn't have the polished ease with which he handled the media, though she had learned to relax enough to answer questions without telegraphing her perpetual nervousness and unease with probing interrogations. She just liked to sit and watch him; she'd always been able to simply watch his every move and marvel to herself that this man was her husband.

At last they wrapped up the session and the interviewer, put at enough ease to almost forget he was dealing with royalty, shook Christian's and Leslie's hands without a second thought. "It was a real pleasure speaking with you both," he said.

"I enjoyed it too," said Christian, and then blinked in surprise. _"Herregud,_ did I really say that? You know, I truly did enjoy it, and I rarely do." They laughed, and a staff member came around to escort Christian and Leslie back to the limo.

"So what do we do now?" she asked.

"I've got to go on to the office and start doing my part alongside poor Jörgen to conduct interviews. You, on the other hand, are expecting to hear from Liselotta, aren't you?" They had had no response from her the previous day, but Christian had figured that was due to Gerhard and Liselotta's usual Sunday visit to the castle to spend the day with the rest of the family. "In which case, you'll return to the hotel and keep our imps occupied."

"What an exciting prospect," Leslie said, rolling her eyes, and he snickered. "Well, okay. You'll call if you can and let me know when you expect to be back?"

"I'll give you a progress report as soon as there's any progress to report," he promised facetiously and grinned. "You keep working on that mystery of yours and let me know if you make any headway."

She thought about that about an hour later when the triplets were running back and forth between their suite and the one she was sharing with Christian, while Ingrid placidly packed up clothing to be washed by the hotel laundry and she was hovering over the laptop Christian had left with her so she could watch for Liselotta's reply. In the meantime she had composed and sent a message to Frida in Sweden, to find out if her friend might have any information. So far, there hadn't been a word from either one of them.

Sitting there keeping one eye on the kids to be sure none of them managed to hurt themselves in the course of their energy-burning, she again considered her idea and decided now was as good a time to consult Roarke as any. She pulled up a new window and signed into her own e-mail, then typed out a swift message to Roarke and sent it, feeling relieved to write in naturally flowing English for once. She'd used _jordiska_ when writing to Frida, thinking the practice would be good for her; but she felt less stupid in her own language.

Roarke must have been right there at the computer in the main house, for within ten minutes she'd received a reply. _"Yes, I believe we can do so. I've just had a cancellation for the second weekend in February, so I'll pencil in your request for that date. When you and Christian return here, I think it wise that you and I discuss the full ramifications and the conditions that will need to be met if you truly intend to carry through with this. I look forward to seeing all of you again."_ She smiled at that, checked her e-mail with no results, and decided out of a sense of growing desperation to e-mail her friends on the island, hoping to find out how their Christmas celebrations had been and whether anything noteworthy had occurred in her absence.

About an hour after she'd sent her messages and had finally given up to play with the triplets and keep them out of Ingrid's hair, Christian's laptop beeped and she quickly tossed a soft ball across the room so the children would chase it and give her a moment to see who might have responded to her e-mails. Excited when she saw it was Frida, she opened the message, then sagged in her chair as she read. Neither Frida nor her mother knew Gefjun Liljefors, although Frida's mother apparently had the same knowledge as Liselotta did in regard to the lady's disappearance. She sighed, then responded to another beep and found a response from Liselotta finally. She confirmed that Gefjun had vanished in early August of 1973, and from that day on no one had ever heard anything of or from her.

"Dead ends," she muttered to herself, catching Susanna as the little girl presented her with the ball. "Well, kiddos, looks like Mommy's mystery's unsolvable for right now. Let's play awhile till we hear from Daddy."

When the triplets went down for their afternoon nap, Leslie had an idea and called the front desk, requesting that they have the limousine ready; then she pulled on her coat, tucked Christian's digital camera inside her purse, let Ingrid know she would be out for a couple of hours at the most, and left the room. As long as she was here, she might as well check it out, she thought; she might never get another chance.

She gave the driver an address in Chelsea and settled back, watching the city slide by as the chauffeur wended his way through Boston's rat's maze of a street map and eventually brought her into Chelsea. It was a somewhat gritty satellite city, very much a working-class neighborhood. Leslie had no idea where Michael Hamilton and his parents had lived, but that wasn't her quest anyway; she was curious to see the graves of the paternal grandparents who had died five years before she was born.

She wandered for almost ten minutes before she found them: Thomas and Dora Hamilton's headstones stood side by side, worn, forlorn gray stone sentinels that listed slightly to one side as if longing to lie down and rest for a while. Thomas, she discovered, was born in 1905, Dora in 1908; their death date turned out to be September 15, 1960. Otherwise she learned nothing; the stones provided only first and last names, birth and death dates. She wondered whether that had been at Michael's behest. _Cheapskate,_ she thought, but somehow she didn't have the energy to muster up her usual annoyance at Michael and his parsimonious ways. The headstones fit here, somehow, sparse and terse as they were. It was very New England, the plain gray stone and the simple inscription, without adornment or flowery sentiment. Some might have seen this as stark or even unwelcoming; but this had always been a harsh land, and it had taken many generations to tame it. There had been no time or inclination for frills. The Hamiltons went back as far as the colonial days here; Leslie thought she remembered her mother telling her that the Reeds did as well, settling in Rhode Island at first to escape the rigid Puritan mindset and persecution, and eventually migrating on to Connecticut. So her roots were here, all right; but she herself no longer felt as though she really belonged. Somehow, she'd turned into a child of Fantasy Island.

She smiled a little at the headstones, took a photo with the digital camera, then turned and made her way back through the snowy cemetery to the waiting limousine. As she settled in the back seat and loosened her coat in the warm interior, the dividing window lowered and the chauffeur turned around. "Your Highness, there's a phone call from Prince Christian. He said you asked him to call when he had news for you."

"Oh, good," said Leslie. "Thanks." The chauffeur nodded and raised the divider again; she found the car phone set into a console against the back of the front seat and squinted at it before lifting the futuristic-looking handset out of its cradle, seeing a small blinking red light, and pressing the button she hoped would connect her with Christian.

"Good," she heard him say before she could speak, "you're back. Where are you?"

"In Chelsea," she told him. "I came here to get a look at Michael's parents' graves."

"Oh?" Christian's surprise was palpable even through the phone. "What possessed you to do that? I thought you were concentrating entirely on your _mormor."_

"I thought I would be too, but…it just came to me." She explained how her afternoon had gone and what little she had learned from Frida and Liselotta. "I felt a little discouraged, so I got the idea to come down here just to see the graves. Michael used to do that, but Mom always either kept us at home with her, or took us sightseeing in town."

"Ah, I see. Well, I'm sorry about the roadblock you've run into, but I do have news for you that might cheer you up. Jörgen and I were very fortunate today. Between us we've already found four of the eleven people we need for this branch. We're going to compare interviews this evening and see if there are any others we might agree on. The faster the better, eh, my Rose?"

"That really is good news," Leslie agreed. "Is Jörgen staying at the Parker House too?"

"I told him he might as well. There's no sense in our burning up telephone lines when we work better face-to-face. We'll have the evening meal in the hotel restaurant and Jörgen will join us there." Christian hesitated, then added a bit reluctantly, "As will Keller."

Leslie smiled resignedly; she knew Christian had been looking forward to a break from his overly talkative new manager. "Oh well. Maybe you and Jörgen can at least do your conferring in _jordiska_…if you do, Keller might get the hint and go home for the night."

"Ach," said Christian through a laugh, "don't tempt me, my Rose. Now I won't be able to get that idea out of my mind. Still, the progress is wonderful, better than I dared hope, so I'm sure you'll see the wisdom of going on in this vein. It may get us back home in only a few more days if fate keeps smiling on us. Don't worry, no matter what happens, I'm determined to make certain I get the best people, the soonest I can."

By Wednesday there was only one more person left to hire—the receptionist—and Christian had decided on a small party at the office to have his new employees meet each other. In the midst of Christian's introducing the new hires to Leslie and the triplets, who hung around their parents and stared with wide eyes at all the strangers, the door opened and a young dark-haired woman slipped inside, casting furtive glances around the office and clutching an oversized black leather purse that hung off one shoulder. When Leslie noticed the door sliding closed and saw the newcomer, she almost choked on a soft gasp. "There is _no way,"_ she muttered to herself, knowing she was quite wrong. Christian's new branch had had too much publicity for something like this not to happen.

She watched Ben Keller immediately head for the front the moment he saw there was a new arrival, and gave a small sigh of relief. Keller and his motorized mouth would keep the woman occupied long enough for her to find Christian and warn him. She hastily searched through the gathering and found him at a desk talking to Jörgen, and urged the triplets along with her as she skirted the room and caught up with him. "Christian, my love," she began.

"Oh, hi, my Rose," Christian said with a smile that fell away when he saw her face. "What's the matter? One more hire and we can go home."

She bit her lip. "That's all very well and fine…but someone just walked in that I have a feeling you're not going to want anything to do with."

Christian stared at her. "Who could possibly produce that reaction from you in a town where you don't know anyone?"

She gave him a wry look and gestured toward the door with a jerk of her head. "Take a look for yourself and say that again," she invited.

Christian frowned, then turned and scanned the faces in the room. His mouth sagged open the moment he saw the new arrival, and he shook his head in disbelief. "I never would have thought Janine Polidari would have the nerve to come over here," he murmured.

"I guess you didn't humiliate her enough," Leslie suggested humorously.

Christian sighed and glanced at Jörgen, whose face was inquisitive. "Pardon me, my Rose," Christian said and proceeded to explain to his longtime employee in _jordiska_ who Janine Polidari was.

Jörgen chuckled, apologized in _jordiska_ and then said in careful but accurate English, "I don't mean to sound cruel, Your Highness. But it seems funny to me, for she is in your…your place. You are the boss here, are you not?"

Leslie grinned at her husband. "It's true, my love—Janine's on your turf and you're in charge here. And before we make assumptions, let's see what kind of attitude she's got."

She finished speaking none too soon, for Ben Keller came over with Janine in tow, his face wreathed in smiles and his mouth already off and running before he'd even gotten within earshot. "Yaw Highness, I think we got us ow-ah new receptionist! Check out huh résumé and see what y'think." He thrust a sheet of paper at Christian, who took it without so much as a bare glance at Janine. Leslie studied the girl, who stood looking at something somewhere around knee level, her cheeks mottled red and her hands clutching her purse strap. Leslie realized Janine was nervous and firmly stifled a smile.

Finally Christian looked up and shot Ben Keller a fast but decidedly fulminating look before turning his attention to Janine. "What decided you to apply here?" he asked neutrally, a question Leslie knew he put to all applicants.

Janine cleared her throat before she spoke, and Leslie could tell it took some effort for her to look at him. "I got laid off from my last job, and it was almost exactly like this one. I was really good at it. My old boss said he'll give me a reference. It's listed on the application there. He told me I should apply here."

"I see," said Christian, face blank, waiting.

"I'm in my freshman year at Radcliffe," Janine explained, her voice trembling just perceptibly. "I'm on a partial scholarship, and my grandparents and my dad are footing the rest of the bill, but they say any spending money I want, I have to earn. I've been working since I came back to live with my grandparents. I like doing reception. I like meeting people and talking to them. My old boss said he likes the way I handle people…even the ones who make trouble. If things got really out of hand, I'd refer them to Mr. Keller, but I can handle most of them and I don't get mad or out of control." She bit her lip, and her eyes skittered away from Christian's, as if she could no longer stand the steady penetration of his expressionless stare. "I-I've grown up, Mr. Enstad. I'm not the stupid kid who ran away from Fantasy Island. Not anymore. I'll do a good and professional job, and you'll never have reason to regret…" She hesitated, flicked a glance at Christian once more and saw that he hadn't moved, and swallowed. "I think this was a mistake. Sorry for wasting your time." She turned and began plowing her way toward the door before anyone, even Keller, could stop her.

Leslie watched her for a second, then looked at Christian. "Oh, my love…are you really gonna let her go like that?"

Christian looked at the application, then after Janine, then snorted and addressed Keller curtly. "Go get her, for fate's sake." Keller instantly sprinted after Janine, adroitly dodging people, and Christian gave Leslie a stern look. "All right, I'll give her a chance. I do like what I see here, and she did stand up to me long enough for me to start considering giving her the position. But…" He paused as Keller came back with Janine in his wake, and he drew in a breath and visibly relaxed himself. "Just one question, Janine. If you truly think this was a mistake, then why did you come here in the first place?"

The noise of the party covered Janine's voice; otherwise Leslie was sure she would never have spoken. Miserably Janine said, "Because every time I think about the last time I saw you, I feel sick. I was stupid and idiotic and a spoiled brat. I was so mortified about the dumb way I acted, I couldn't even find the guts to apologize. I thought at least I could do that, but I don't think I could work for you and not have you be suspicious that I'm still that spoiled-brat moron."

For a second or two Christian just stared at her; then his eyebrows flew up and he suddenly began to laugh. "I can see you're telling me the truth. I've never seen anyone's face get as red as yours is right now. All right, Janine, here's my proposal. I'll give you the job on a trial basis, and Mr. Keller here will report back to me on everyone's performance here—not only yours, but the other people I've hired here this week as well. You'll be on a thirty-day trial period, like all my other new hires. If you meet my standards, I'll be more than glad to take you on as long as you want to work for me. And we'll let bygones be bygones and start anew. Do we have an agreement?"

"Yes, _sir,"_ Janine said, her red face splitting into a relieved smile and her body sagging at the same time. "I promise, you can count on me, and I'll prove it."

"Then you're hired," Christian told her and offered a hand, which she shook before curtsying to him and making him roll his eyes. "Ach, none of that. Prince or not, I'd prefer to be thought of simply as your ultimate boss. Mr. Keller is in charge of the branch, but he answers to me; so he'll tell me the truth the first time I ask how things are going here. And I'll be anticipating a good review on your performance here."

"You'll get it, Mr. Enstad," Janine said, still smiling.

"Good. Now, as long as you're here, why don't you join the party? It's for all the new employees here, so you may as well take the chance and get to know the people you'll be working with." Janine nodded eagerly and thanked him, then plunged into the group of people and began mingling.

Then Christian turned to Keller. "What would you have said if I'd told you I preferred not to hire that young lady, Ben?"

Keller looked surprised. "Beg pahdon, Yaw Highness?"

"I think you had the idea that Janine was going to be the receptionist no matter what I said. I don't want to seem overbearing here, but please remember, I have final say in who gets hired and who doesn't. You're fortunate that things went as they did."

Keller cleared his throat. "She just seemed like a good fit faw the job."

"And you knew this from the moment she walked in the door?" Christian countered pointedly. Keller caught himself and looked sheepishly away, and Christian smiled faintly. "I welcome recommendations, but that's as far as it goes. It happens that I knew the young lady from before, but if I hadn't, you can rest assured that I would have deferred interviewing her till tomorrow morning; and if I hadn't liked her, I wouldn't have hired her, no matter how enthusiastic you were about her. Just because I'm several thousand miles away doesn't mean I don't intend to keep a close eye on this branch and the people in it—and that includes you, Ben. You can ask your counterparts in London and Santi Arcuros and Fantasy Island, and even Jörgen here—he's been with me longer than any of my other employees, with only one exception. They all underwent the same scrutiny, whether I was in the vicinity or at my home base. And just like any other new hire, I have final say over your employment as well, Ben. So keep in mind that you're not invulnerable."

"Message received loud and cleah, boss," Keller said quietly.

"Very good. Well…" Christian checked his watch. "I think we'd better get back. The children need to calm down before we put them down for the night…and we have several long flights ahead of us." He smiled at Leslie's delighted reaction. "Yes, my Rose, we're going home tomorrow."


	6. Chapter 6

§ § § -- January 13, 2006

"Welcome home, all of you," Roarke said warmly, hugging Leslie and shaking Christian's hand, and taking a moment to gently hug each tired, sleepy child in turn. "I hope your flights were uneventful."

Christian chuckled. "As much as possible, considering the fact that we were traveling with three toddlers. I don't think we'll have any trouble getting them to sleep."

"Especially at this hour," Leslie muttered, yawning. "I'm sorry, Father, we really need to get to bed and catch up a little. How's the weekend look?"

"We'll talk about that later," Roarke promised her. "You can come to the house anytime you like, and when you do, bring the urn. The cemetery office in Connecticut was very efficient; your grandmother's headstone has already arrived."

"Oh, good," Leslie said, smiling tiredly and glancing around the plane dock, which was weirdly empty other than the three children and herself, Christian, Roarke and Ingrid. "Then I guess we'll see you at lunch?"

"That'll be fine," Roarke agreed and patted her shoulder. "You'd all best get home and get some sleep. Again, welcome back." They all smiled at one another, and Roarke drove them as far as the main house, where Christian and Leslie had left their car while they were away. He helped them load luggage in the back and secure children in car seats, then wished them a good night once more and retreated to the main house while the Enstads headed for home.

"Did you tell Mr. Roarke about the little mystery Edith Appleton presented you with while we were in Plainville?" Christian asked, piloting the car along the deserted Ring Road.

"No, actually I didn't," Leslie admitted. "I figured there'd be time enough to ask for his help once we got home. To tell you the truth, I was expecting that either Frida or Liselotta might have something more to tell me; that's why I didn't fill him in. But now that they can't help me any further, it looks like it's time to go to Father."

Christian nodded. "If anyone has answers, he will."

It took them all several trips to get the children, the luggage and the carry-on bags into the house; then Christian and Leslie sent Ingrid to bed, pulled clothing off sleepy toddlers and tugged pajamas on, and put them to bed, where fortunately all three willingly dropped right off to sleep. They were as tired from the long trip as their parents were, and put up no fuss at all.

Though Leslie was willing to leave the unpacking for later, she did insist on removing the urn with Ingunna's ashes from the carry-on bag where it had reposed throughout the many hours of airplane flights. Christian paused to watch while she set it carefully on the floor in front of her nightstand. "I think she's all bedded down for the night," he kidded.

Leslie made a face at him and grinned wryly. "I just want the urn close by," she said with a diffident shrug. "I mean, for some reason it makes me feel better knowing it's where I can easily see it."

He chuckled. "I think I understand. Well, come on then, let's get to sleep. I'm afraid I'll topple over unless I get to bed within the next five minutes."

They crawled into bed soon after that, but Leslie lay awake for some time after she heard Christian's deep, even breathing at her side. Several times she peered over the edge of the mattress at the urn, before finally staring at the stars that winked through the bedroom skylight and thinking wistfully, _I sure hope you like it here, _mormor. A bright star twinkled back at her, and for some reason she felt reassured. She smiled and finally fell asleep.

When Christian rolled over and bumped into her, waking both of them, it was past ten o'clock. "I feel decadent," he admitted, grinning sleepily. "I probably haven't slept that late since I was the triplets' age—my sleep-deprivation episode from a few years ago notwithstanding." She grinned at the reminder of his thirty hours without sleep after returning to the island to recant his breakup with her, the year he had established his Fantasy Island branch. He had vowed never to allow that to happen again.

"But we sure needed it," Leslie said, and he nodded agreement. "Well, what're your plans for the day? I'll be headed up to the main house in a couple of hours or so to have lunch with Father, and if my memory isn't too fuzzed out from coming home so late last night, I think he meant for you and the kids to come along."

"It would be strange if he didn't," Christian observed. "I think he truly enjoys having his family around him. Well, then, let's get ready—we have enough time that we can take our leisure doing it."

They let the exhausted triplets sleep in as long as possible while showering, dressing and unpacking. Christian found the picture Leslie had taken of her paternal grandparents' gravestones and downloaded it onto his computer for safekeeping, and read the dates on the stones. "They died that long before you were born?" he asked in surprise.

"_Mormor_ was the only grandparent I knew," she reminded him. "Yeah, Michael's parents had been gone almost five years before I came along. It's funny, I never wondered about them—what they were like, if they might've been different from Michael, if the twins and I would've liked them had they lived long enough." She shrugged. "Maybe someday I'll look into that side of the family. Right now I'm just worried about _mormor_ and making sure she's finally settled into a place where she won't have to be exhumed ever again."

He smiled at that. "Then we'd better hurry so we can secure her in her new resting place." He glanced in the direction of the triplets' room. "I'm getting suspicious—not a peep out of the children yet. I think I'd better double-check on them." She chuckled and watched him leave the room, then went on unpacking.

In about an hour they were on their way to the main house, with Ingrid already having started the usual household chores and the triplets bathed and dressed in fresh clothing. Tobias and Susanna were still munching on pieces of toast; Susanna's dress, a clone of her sister's, was covered with toast crumbs, and the barrette with which Leslie had pulled back her hair was already askew. "So much for presenting a dignified front," she mused with a wry smile as Christian turned onto the Ring Road.

Christian glanced in the mirror and laughed. "They'll be fine. You can straighten her up before we go inside, and Mr. Roarke will never know the difference."

But Roarke came out to meet them while Leslie was still brushing crumbs off the front of Susanna's dress, and chuckled at sight of his grandchildren. "It appears they got a good night's sleep," he remarked, while Tobias and Karina ran to him for hugs, huge smiles on their small faces.

"That they did," Christian said, watching Susanna squirm in Leslie's grasp, trying to get away to her grandfather. "Susanna and Tobias didn't quite finish their breakfast before we left, and Susanna in particular has been a little wiggleworm today."

"Sheesh," Leslie muttered, finally releasing her daughter, who bolted straight for Roarke. "She's going to lose that barrette before the day's out, I can see it coming. Well, hi, Father. Someone's happy to see you."

"Indeed she is," Roarke said, laughing and lifting Susanna into the air to give her the hug he'd bestowed on her siblings. "It's very good to have all of you back home again. If you two would like to bring the youngsters inside, we'll talk about your trip. I must admit, even I was amazed when your sister's husband turned up alive and well, Christian."

"I don't think anyone was more shocked than Anna-Laura," Christian agreed, "but to tell you the truth, it wasn't so much Esbjörn's return that stunned me personally as the story he told to explain his disappearance." They moved into the house and sat down in the study, Roarke behind the desk and Christian and Leslie in the leather chairs before it, while the triplets discovered a low shelf full of children's picture books and began pulling them off to examine them. Christian then told the story of Esbjörn's "resurrection", with Leslie adding some parts here and there.

"And just in time for your Christmas celebrations, too," Roarke said, shaking his head. "Do you expect a great deal of backlash against your family in the wake of the revelations of your father's and brother's involvement in Miss Vikslund's plot?"

Christian shrugged, looking uneasy. "I don't know. I've been so busy staffing my new branch that I haven't paid much attention to the news this past week, and none of my family has said anything in their e-mails about public opinion. But to have a king—worse, two kings—involved even to the smallest degree in something so nefarious can have only the worst sort of repercussion, even if said kings are both deceased and the rest of the family is innocent. I've begun to have days in which I'm ashamed to be an Enstad."

Leslie squeezed his hand. "Look, my love, just because your father was enthusiastic about Einar Vikslund's plan to drill so near the coast doesn't necessarily mean he was out to intentionally commit crimes against either humans or nature. After all, the economy wasn't good at the time, and it's entirely possible that all he could see was the chance to bring new jobs to Lilla Jordsö. And Arnulf's presence at the apparent assassination actually prevented it from becoming one—Esbjörn theorized that he's the one who jostled the assassin's arm so that the bullet only injured him, rather than killing him."

Christian shook his head, looking a little impatient. "They shouldn't have been involved in the damned thing at all. Royalty might have been able to get away with such insidious deeds in centuries past, but the world no longer believes in the all-encompassing power of monarchs. Father and Arnulf would have been far better off if they'd been born five or six centuries ago, when people may not have liked the atrocious things royalty did, but had no recourse. If it had come out when either of them was still alive, they'd have been toppled off that throne without ceremony, and Carl Johan would probably be king."

Roarke listened quietly to Christian's diatribe, then smiled when the prince fell into an annoyed silence. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, Christian. As you said yourself, the rest of the family is innocent. And the plot to kill your brother-in-law was dreamed up solely by Miss Vikslund, no matter who may have agreed that it was the only way to stop Esbjörn's attempt to thwart the drilling concern. In the end, it will be she who must answer for her actions—and those of her father, your father, and your brother." He sat back and nodded, still smiling, while Christian stared dubiously at him. "You have other things to occupy your mind, my dear Christian, and I suggest you concentrate on those. You and the rest of your surviving family have a good rapport with your people, and I daresay you will all come through this relatively unscathed."

"So all we need to do is wait and see how the trial comes out," Leslie added. "I think Father's right, my love. Whatever happens is going to happen anyway, so you might as well think about something else."

Christian hiked a brow at her and suggested, "That something else presumably being your little mystery. I thought that's why we came here in the first place—to tell Mr. Roarke about your grandmother's pen pal."

"Are you hiding something from me, young lady?" Roarke asked teasingly.

Leslie laughed. "Not intentionally. I just thought it would be easier to tell you about it in person." She went on to fill him in about the letters Edith Appleton had given her and what little they had found out about Gefjun Liljefors; and when she finished she had been leaning forward for several minutes because of the increasingly strange expression on Roarke's face. "What is it, Father?"

Roarke focused on her and said slowly, "I think you have just solved a mystery I've had for more than thirty years."

Christian and Leslie looked at each other in astonishment. "What would that be?" asked Leslie, sitting up straight, eyes fixed on Roarke.

Roarke resettled himself in his chair and shook his head a little, a wondering look on his features. "It was quite late in 1973 when an elderly woman arrived on my island, alone and carrying what she said were all her worldly possessions in one valise. She told me little about herself, merely asked for asylum. I already had my immigration rules in place, so I told her she must speak with me here in my office and explain why she wished to remain here.

"Even then she said very little, but out of necessity she did give me her name: Gefjun Liljefors. I could see that she had been through much. She spoke only what English she needed to get by, with a very strong Scandinavian accent; her clothing had clearly seen better days, and so had her valise. There was a deep sadness in her eyes. She explained, very quietly, that she had lost her dearest friend, she had no home nor family, and she was afraid to try to settle anywhere else because of her powers. She performed a small demonstration on Mana'olana, who was of course our cook at the time, by willing her into the kitchen and having her make refreshments that would keep her out of the room long enough for the lady to explain what she wanted. I knew such powers would bring certain persecution, so I gave her the asylum she requested.

"She lived here only six months or so, in a small hut some distance away from the edge of town, tucked into the trees so that it was difficult to see from the road. It was clear to me that she wanted nothing more than to be left to herself, and I always wondered how she obtained provisions and where her funds came from." He smiled. "Not that I asked, of course—as you are both well aware, privacy is extremely important on this island, and I try to respect my guests' and my people's wishes to the furthest extent possible.

"But one day in the spring of 1974, she appeared here unexpectedly and handed me a package wrapped in plain brown paper. She asked me to keep it for someone—all she would tell me was that it was for her friend's little girl. I learned a few days later from one of my employees that she had passed away; he had found her in her little cottage. She is buried in the island cemetery, the same one where Mateo lies."

"She…she's here?" Leslie breathed, so stunned she could hardly absorb the story.

"Indeed she is," Roarke said. His gaze refocused and his expression softened as he studied his daughter. "If you like, I'll take you to see the grave."

Leslie blinked at him and suddenly smiled faintly. "That means _mormor_ and her best friend will be together again, in a way. They'll both be here, safe on this island, away from any more disturbance."

"Indeed," said Roarke.

"That package you say she gave you," Christian began. "Do you still have it?"

"Ah, yes, I certainly do," Roarke told him and smiled broadly. "Now that you tell me about your grandmother, Leslie, and her friendship with this lady—and most especially, the letters that Mrs. Appleton gave you in Connecticut—I strongly suspect that the package in question contains your grandmother's letters to her friend. If you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll get the package and bring it to you."

"So there's your mystery, solved," Christian remarked, grinning as Roarke left the room and ascended the stairs.

"Seems so," Leslie agreed. "Well, I hope you're not too averse to playing translator in the future, but I have a funny feeling that for now at least, just having those letters will be enough. One day I'll have a chance to start learning a little more about my grandmother, even if it's through the eyes of a stranger."

Roarke returned and pressed a package about the size of a shoebox into Leslie's hands. "There you are," he said, sitting down again. "Those are yours to keep. Why don't you open it and see if the contents are in fact your grandmother's letters to Ms. Liljefors."

Leslie plucked a letter opener off the desk and slit the brown wrapping with it, then inserted a finger and pulled away the paper. Sure enough, there was a stack of letters all addressed to Gefjun Liljefors, each one bearing various return addresses but all of them with the name Ingunna Reed. Curiosity drove her to check the dates on the very first letter, which to her amazement was postmarked from New Haven in 1932, and on the last one—which as she had suspected bore a Plainville postmark dated in early July 1973. "They were friends for more than forty years," she marveled. "That's pretty amazing."

"Especially in this day and age," Christian said. "Well then, I presume the next order of business is having a small, private funeral for Ingunna."

So, leaving the triplets under the supervision of Mariki and her staff, Roarke, Leslie and Christian made their way to the tiny private cemetery where Helena Marsh, Teppo Komainen, and Tattoo had been buried. Four native men stood around a fresh hole in the ground, dug in a perfect square about two feet deep to accommodate the urn containing Ingunna's ashes, and the headstone from Connecticut already rested at the head of this hole. They nodded to the threesome as they stepped within the low stone wall enclosing the cemetery, and watched in respectful silence as Leslie carefully settled the urn into the hole. She gathered up a handful of blossoms from the ground under the azalea bushes flanking Tattoo's nearby grave, certain her honorary uncle would never have begrudged the donation of the flowers the bushes seemed to constantly produce and shed year-round, and scattered them over and around the urn.

"This is your new home, _mormor,"_ she murmured, "and we promise, nobody'll ever disturb you again." She looked up in time to catch Roarke's and Christian's smiles, and smiled back, feeling at peace.

* * *

_Next up: someone is in for a fantasy they never truly expected, despite complaints. What's the fantasy, and who's the recipient?…_


End file.
